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FUNDAMENTAL    FACTS 
FOR  THE  TEACHER 


BY 

ELMER  BURRITT   BRYAN,   LL.  D. 

President  of  Colgate  University 
Author  of  *^The  Basis  of  Practical  Teaching  " 

:2.  33  4  4 


SILVER,   BURDETT  AND   COMPANY 

BOSTON  NEW  YORK  CHICAGK) 


COPTHIGHT,    1911,    BY 

SILVER,    BURDETT   AND   COMPANY 


£<iuofition 
Library 

lG 
38^ 


PREFACE 

Since  the  publication  of  "The  Basis  of  Practical 
Teaching,"  there  has  been  a  wide-spread  demand  for 
a  second  book  which  should  follow  the  lines  of  character 
building  or  moral  training.  ''Fundamental  Facts  for 
the  Teacher"  has  been  written  with  the  view  of  meeting 
this  demand.  Very  briefly  I  have  tried  to  develop  the 
thought  that  the  end  of  all  human  activities  is  life,  and 
that  this  end  can  be  attained  through  no  hook  or  crook 
or  by-process,  but  only  in  the  processes  of  real  living. 
We  are  made  or  unmade  in  the  activities  of  hfe.  I  have 
the  hope  that  this  book  will  appeal  not  only  to  teachers 
and  students,  but  to  the  general  public  as  well. 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAQB 

I.  The  Distinctive  Work  of  the  School      ....  7 

II.    The  Motives  of  the  School 13 

III.    Attention  and  Conduct 18 

rV.    Suggestion  and  Conduct 24 

V.    Belief  and  Conduct 31 

VI.    Fear  and  Conduct 37 

VII.    Self-Respect  and  Conduct 42 

VIII.    Ideais  and  Conduct 46 

rX.    Models  and  Ideals 60 

X.  The  Psychology  of  an  Abiding  Ideal       ....  56 

XI.    The  School  and  Ideals 61 

XII.    The  Roots  of  Character          67 

XIII.  Will,  the  Center  of  Character 74 

XIV.  Work  and  Character 81 

XV.    Play  and  Character 87 

XVI.    Persistence  and  Character 92 

XVII.    Choice  and  Character 100 

XVIII.    The  School  and  Character 107 


CHAPTER  I 

THE  DISTINCTIVE  WORK  OF  THE  SCHOOL 

2.334-4 

There  is  no  other  institution  in  which  the  Ameri- 
can people  are  so  universally  and  keenly  interested 
as  they  are  in  the  school,  and  there  is  no  subject 
so  widely  and  intelUgently  discussed  by  the  masses 
as  is  the  subject  of  education.  This  is  not  surpris- 
ing for  in  addition  to  the  benefits  which  are  derived 
directly  from  the  schools  by  all  classes  of  people  who 
attend  or  patronize  them,  and  indirectly  even  by 
those  who  do  neither,  there  are  many  things  which 
contribute  to  this  general  interest. 

From  the  homes  of  the  rich  and  the  poor,  the  native 
bom  and  the  foreign  born,  the  professional  classes  and 
the  tradesmen,  go  the  children  into  the  schools,  and 
there  they  have  their  victories  and  their  defeats,  their 
glad  hours  and  their  sad  hours.  They  mingle  with  the 
bright  and  the  dull.  They  come  under  the  discipUne 
and  instruction  of  strangers  whom  they  often  come  to 
revere,  sometimes  to  dislike.  It  is  a  new  world  to  the 
young  child,  and  remains  a  distinctive  world  through- 
out his  student  years.  The  school  is  the  topic  of 
conversation  in  the  home;  and  parents,  older  brothers 
and  sisters,  and  even  brothers  and  sisters  too  young 
to  be  in  school,  have  an  interest  in  it.     Furthermore, 

7 


8  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

all  our  people  support  the  school  regardless  of  per- 
sonal benefits  directly  derived  therefrom.  There  is 
perhaps  no  interest  so  vital  as  a  vested  interest. 
Even  if  people  are  not  directly  participating  in  an 
enterprise  or  an  institution,  if  their  money  is  used  in 
its  support  they  are  apt  to  have  an  interest  in  it. 
The  special  days  in  our  schools  —  flag  day,  arbor  day, 
anniversary  days,  commencement  —  all  ofifer  the  pub- 
lic opportunities  for  recreation,  entertainment  and 
instruction  which  the  mass  of  the  people  are  not 
slow  to  accept.  As  a  result  of  all  this  there  is  very 
wide  and  deep  interest  in  the  schools  notwithstanding 
the  apparent  apathy  and  unconcern. 

So  much  is  the  school  a  part  of  our  lives  and  our 
daily  Uving  that  we  take  it  for  granted ;  we  accept  the 
school,  as  we  do  the  mountains  and  the  valleys  about 
us.  Before  we  were,  it  was;  and  as  with  all  social 
inheritances  we  look  upon  it  almost  as  a  law  of 
nature.  But  in  this  unquestioning  acceptance  of  the 
school,  which  is  at  once  the  great  force  for  higher 
levels  in  life  and  the  great  leveler,  too  many  of  our 
people  forget  that  it  is  but  one  of  five  great  organized 
social  agencies  whose  function  is  to  help  the  people, 
each  of  course  in  its  own  distinctive  way.  In  practi- 
cally every  community,  while  perhaps  not  too  much 
is  demanded  of  the  school, .  wrong  things  are  de- 
manded, and  the  school  is  not  free  to  do  its  own 
work  well.  It  is  always  a  mistake  to  ask  the  school 
to  assume  the  responsibilities  and  bear  the  burdens  of 
other  institutions,  and  not  infrequently  is  this  done. 
The  home,  the  church,  business  and  even  the  state 


THE   DISTINCTIVE   WORK   OF   THE   SCHOOL  9 

are  offenders  here.  Delinquent  parents  demand  of 
the  school  work  which  constitutes  the  legitimate 
reason  for  the  home.  The  church,  whose  function  is 
the  increase  of  righteousness  in  the  world,  makes 
illegitimate  demands  upon  the  school.  Business  de- 
mands a  degree  of  skill  and  a  power  of  adjustment 
which  it  is  never  the  function  of  the  school  to  confer 
or  develop.  The  state  demands  of  the  school  that  it 
shall  turn  out  law-abiding,  pubUc-spirited  citizens. 
No  one  questions  that  the  school  has  an  obligation 
here,  but  it  is  too  much  to  demand  such  results  of 
the  school  in  the  face  of  dishonest  practices  in  the 
home,  questionable  business  methods  in  the  markets, 
and  graft  and  misrule  in  the  state.  These  institu- 
tions must  mutually  reenforce  one  another.  The 
work  of  the  school  will  tell  in  all  the  others,  but  it 
will  tell  most  fully  when  it  is  no  longer  burdened  with 
their  work  and  is  free  to  do  its  own  work  in  the  most 
effective  way.  We  must  reahze  that  the  benefits 
derived  from  the  school  Will  be  large  in  proportion  as 
it  does  its  own  work ;  and  because  the  school  holds  so 
important  a  place  in  our  lives  we  must  not  therefore 
demand  of  it  service  which  it  is  not  its  province  to 
render,  and  so  handicap  it  in  rendering  the  much 
higher  service  which  is  its  function. 

The  one  distinctive  function  of  the  school  is  de- 
velopment of  the  entire  child.  The  child  enters  the 
school  undeveloped  in  mind  and  body.  He  is  young, 
inexperienced,  weak  and  comparatively  helpless  men- 
tally and  physically.  The  function  of  the  school  is . 
to  train  so  that  the  child  will  develop  a  degree  of 


10  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE    TEACHER 

mental  and  physical  mastery;  to  teach  so  that  the 
child  will  gradually  come  out  of  the  bondage  of 
ignorance  into  the  freedom  of  knowledge;  to  give 
ample  and  varied  opportunities  for  mental  and 
physical  exercise  so  that  the  child  will  come  out  of 
weakness  into  strength;  and  to  cultivate  the  habit  of 
appUcation  and  independence  of  movement  so  that 
the  child  will  become  able  to  exercise  his  own  initiative 
and  to  plan  his  own  programs  of  life.  Such  is  the 
legitimate  work  of  the  school.  There  will  of  course 
be  many  by-products,  as  there  are  in  all  life's  pro- 
cesses, but  the  one  thing  for  which  the  school  should 
aim  is  development.  For  this  all  things  else  exist. 
Whatever  does  not  contribute  directly  or  remotely 
to  development  as  the  final  fruitage  can  be  no 
legitimate  factor  or  process  of  the  school.  This  is  the 
final  test.  Does  the  superintendent  of  schools  make 
his  contribution  to  the  development  of  the  children? 
Is  this  contribution  a  large  and  generous  one  ?  Then 
the  superintendent  has  justified  his  existence  as  such. 
The  same  test  apphes  to  teachers,  janitors,  the  money 
expended  in  laboratories,  Ubraries,  gymnasia,  play- 
grounds, etc.  Whatever  makes  for  the  enlarged  life 
of  the  child  —  pictures,  music,  Greek,  Delsarte,  physi- 
cal appliances  —  has  a  place  and  should  be  admitted  as 
an  important  factor.  Tradition  and  custom  notwith- 
standing, whatever  does  not  make  for  the  enlarged 
life  of  the  child  should  be  ehminated  as  having  no 
place  in  the  school. 

It  is  not  the  function  of  the  school  to  prepare  the 
children  for  particular  work  in  the  world.     Even  in 


THE  DISTINCTIVE  WORK  OF   THE   SCHOOL  11 

our  largest  cities,  where  life  is  differentiated  and  the 
division  of  labor  carried  to  the  extreme,  neither  parent, 
teacher  nor  child  can  predict  what  the  child  may  be 
doing  in  a  comparatively  short  time  after  leaving 
the  school.  The  rapid  invention  of  machinery,  the 
change  of  work  due  to  accident  and  unforeseen  de- 
velopments, make  any  such  prediction  hazardous. 
If  the  child  is  developed,  and  this  is  the  work  we 
have  a  right  to  expect  the  school  to  undertake,  he  will 
find  it  comparatively  easy  to  make  the  adjustments 
necessary  to  meet  the  varying  vicissitudes  of  life;  but 
if  he  is  fitted  for  one  thing,  even  well  fitted,  he  is 
hopelessly  lost  in  the  event  of  displacement.  The 
work  of  adjustment,  of  special  preparation  for  special 
things,  should  never  be  expected  of  the  school;  such 
work  is  beyond  its  province,  and  comes  later  in  life, 
when  the  child  is  no  longer  in  the  school  and  is  out 
making  his  adjustments  to  life  as  he  finds  it,  as  it 
exists  for  no  other  being  in  the  world,  and  as  it  can 
not  be  idealized  in  any  school.  This  is  even  true  in 
the  professional  schools.  How  much  truer  then  in 
the  common  schools?  A  young  man  learns  medicine 
and  the  alUed  Unes  of  science  in  the  Medical  College. 
He  learns  to  be  a  physician  in  the  actual  practice  of 
his  profession.  The  same  thing  is  just  as  true  of  the 
lawyer,  the  minister  and  the  engineer.  Power  of 
adjustment  to  the  actual  things  comes  only  through 
exercise  in  adjusting  to  actual  things.  The  greatest 
service  the  school  can  render  the  professions  and 
specialized  labor  of  all  kinds  is  to  turn  over  to  them 
well-developed  men  and  women. 


12  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR  THE   TEACHER 

Now  the  school  must  know  that  this  is  its  work  and 
it  must  be  faithful  to  its  task.  The  superintendent 
or  teacher  who  does  not  have  a  clear  conception  of 
the  real  work  of  the  school  has  not  learned  the  most 
important  lesson  of  his  profession.  The  school  should 
not  allow  itself  to  be  stampeded  into  false  positions 
and  impossible  undertakings  by  the  clamors  of  even  a 
sincere  though  a  more  or  less  thoughtless  pubUc.  In 
these  days,  when  every  conceivable  subject  is  knock- 
ing at  the  door  of  the  school  and  asking  or  demanding 
admittance,  it  is  more  important  than  ever  to  have  a 
restatement  of  the  function  of  the  school  and  a  very 
clear  conception  of  the  work  which  it  should  do.  We 
shall  lose  ground  and  do  weak  work  if  we  have  but  a 
vague  conception  of  what  we  are  about.  We  shall 
gain  ground  and  render  an  unprecedented  service  if 
we  have  a  clearly  defined  conception  of  our  work,  and 
the  courage  to  follow  it. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  MOTIVES   OF  THE   SCHOOL 

In  the  preceding  chapter  the  purpose  was  to  set 
forth  in  brief  but  clear  and  concise  form  the  work 
which  the  school  may  legitimately  undertake.  The 
plans,  devices  and  methods  employed  will  be  numer- 
ous, and  as  varied  as  the  conditions  under  which 
the  work  is  done.  Such  things  must  be  left  to  the 
ingenuity  and  good  judgment  of  the  teacher.  Never- 
theless all  teachers,  if  they  understand  well  the  organ- 
izing idea  or  the  function  of  the  school,  will  have  the 
same  ultimate  aim.  This  aim  is  capable  of  definition, 
and  its  importance  is  primary  and  fundamental. 
There  is,  however,  another  factor  so  subtle  as  almost 
to  evade  discussion,  yet  so  important  in  determining 
the  character  of  all  work  that  we  must  not  fail  to 
give  it  thought  in  connection  with  our  consideration  of 
the  function  of  the  school.  It  is  the  question  of  the 
motives  of  the  school.  There  are  four  legitimate 
motives:  (1)  the  individual  motive  of  the  student; 
(2)  the  individual  motive  of  the  teacher;  (3)  the 
social  motive  of  the  student;  (4)  the  social  motive  of 
the  teacher. 

The  individual  motive  of  the  student  is  the  accom- 
phshment  of  the  tasks  set.     Occasionally  it  is  well  to 

13 


14  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

hold  before  young  children,  as  far  as  it  is  possible  to 
do  so,  the  ultimate  results  of  the  work  they  are  about. 
But  this  should  seldom  be  done,  and  whenever  we  do 
so  we  take  the  risk  of  developing  a  habit  of  life  some- 
what similar  to  the  habit  of  turning  to  the  close  of  a 
book  to  see  how  it  is  going  to  come  out,  thus  robbing 
ourselves  of  the  thrill  and  the  joy  of  following  the 
development  step  by  step.  It  is  not  desirable  that 
children  should  be  dwelhng  upon  the  great  things 
that  are  ahead.  The  normal  mental  attitude  of  the 
child  is  that  of  apphcation  to  the  task  before  him, 
a  desire  to  accomphsh  it,  and  a  joy  in  its  accom- 
pUshment.  The  student  thinks  that  his  work  is  the 
solution  of  the  problem,  the  demonstration  of  the 
proposition,  the  translation  of  a  chapter,  the  analysis 
of  a  compound  or  a  plant,  or  the  recital  of  a  campaign. 
It  would  be  indicative  of  abnormal  self-centering  for 
the  child,  or  even  for  the  more  mature  student  in  the 
public  schools,  to  say,  ''Now  I  shall  spend  an  hour  in 
developing  my  mind  by  working  in  mathematics  or 
science  or  language."  The  individual  motive  of  the 
student  is  the  accomphshment  of  the  task.  The 
great  benefits  to  be  derived  from  such  accomphsh- 
ment in  the  form  of  strength  of  character  and  prepa- 
ration for  larger  things  ahead  are  only  in  a  small  and 
vague  way  motives  in  his  work. 

The  individual  motive  of  the  teacher  is  different. 
He  insists  upon  complete  and  accurate  work,  upon 
correct  results.  In  the  solution  of  the  problem  in 
whatever  subject  it  may  arise,  the  correct  method 
must  be  pursued,  fallacies  avoided  and  correct  re- 


THE   MOTIVES   OF   THE    SCHOOL  15 

suits  obtained.  He  is  even  more  profoundly  inter- 
ested in  the  student's  accomplishment  of  the  task  than 
is  the  student  himself,  yet  this  is  not  the  ultimate 
motive  of  the  teacher.  The  student  looks  upon  the 
assignment  as  the  thing  to  be  accomplished.  The 
teacher  looks  upon  the  student's  development  as  the 
thing  to  be  accomplished.  The  student  is  interested 
in  mathematics,  geography  or  chemical  results.  The 
teacher  is  interested  in  human  results.  The  student 
is  set  on  mastering  this  book  on  arithmetic.  The 
teacher  knows  that  by  the  use  of  another  arithmetic 
he  could  accomplish  his  purpose  equally  well.  The 
study  in  which  the  student  is  interested  is  the  means 
whereby  the  teacher  realizes  his  professional  end,  which 
is  the  development  of  the  student.  The  individual 
motive  of  the  student  is  the  accomplishment  of  the 
work.  The  individual  motive  of  the  teacher  is  the 
accomplishment  of  the  student  through  his  work. 

Later  in  his  student  life  the  student  comes  to  have 
more  far-reaching  and  comprehensive  motives;  he  be- 
comes less  centered  on  the  thing  in  hand  as  the  one  ulti- 
mately worth  while;  he  becomes  sociaHzed,  his  school 
activities  come  to  have  less  final  value  in  themselves, 
and  seek  a  larger  meaning  outside  themselves;  and  finally 
they  come  to  be  regarded  not  as  ends  in  themselves 
but  merely  as  means  to  higher  ends.  The  accomplish- 
ments of  the  schoolroom  come  to  have  a  social  signifi- 
cance, and  the  student  discovers  that  he  is  actuated  by 
a  social  motive.  He  becomes  desirous  of  having  his 
schoolroom  tasks  and  performances  of  such  a  character 
as  to  relate  themselves  to  the  busy  world  outside. 


/ 


16  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS    FOR   THE    TEACHER 

At  this  point  in  the  development  of  the  student  he 
finds  himself  trying  to  decide  what  he  is  going  to 
be  and  what  he  is  going  to  do.  He  is  sometimes 
pathetically  ill  at  ease  because  he  has  not  chosen 
his  profession  or  business.  He  desires  now  to  work 
toward  some  definite  end.  He  is  not  yet  the  friend  of 
"general  culture."  He  feels  that  the  great  discovery 
ahead  of  him  is  his  life's  work.  He  does  not  yet  real- 
ize that  the  great  discovery  ahead  of  him  is  himself. 
He  does  not  yet  fully  realize  that  many  of  the  misfits 
in  life  may  be  due  to  the  fact  that  men  and  women 
have  not  discovered  themselves,  that  they  have 
stopped  just  short  of  the  physical  laboratory,  the  art 
studio,  or  the  classics,  and  that  their  kingdom  re- 
mains undiscovered. 

In  high  school  and  college  the  longing  to  be 
somebody  and  to  do  something,  to  get  out  into  the 
world  and  help  along,  is  very  pronounced.  Such  a 
longing  is  legitimate  and  beautiful;  in  it  there  are 
hope  and  encouragement.  The  danger  here  is  that  be- 
fore discovering  himself  and  finding  his  own  work  the 
student  may  go  out  to  accomphsh  before  his  character 
has  acquired  proper  development.  Working  thus,  the 
results  must  always  be  partial  and  unsatisfactory. 
To  the  reaUzation  of  this  social  motive  of  the  student 
nothing  contributes  so  largely  as  do  the  individual 
motives  of  the  student  and  the  teacher.  When  the 
student  has  accomplished  his  tasks  faithfully  and  fully 
and  the  teacher  has  accomplished  the  student's  develop- 
ment through  this  full  and  faithful  performance  of  his 
tasks,  the  student  is  ready  to  follow  the  social  motive. 


THE   MOTIVES   OP   THE   SCHOOL  17 

The  social  motive  of  the  teacher  is  closely  akin  to 
the  social  motive  of  the  student,  although  more  com- 
prehensive and  general.  The  student  is  actuated  by 
the  motive  to  do  his  own  work;  his  motive  is  special- 
ized service.  The  teacher's  individual  motive  —  the 
development  of  the  child  —  has  its  fruitage  in  the 
teacher's  social  motive  of  service.  It  is  of  small 
concern  to  him  in  what  particular  channel  the  student's 
life  shall  run  and  what  particular  service  he  shall 
render.  The  teacher  simply  desires  that  the  stu- 
dent shall  be  of  large  account  in  the  world.  For 
his  student  as  an  individual  the  teacher  covets  the 
larger  life,  human  wealth;  for  his  student  as  a  social 
factor  he  covets  service. 

The  four  legitimate  motives  then  of  the  school  are : 
(1)  the  individual  motive  of  the  student  —  doing  the 
work  assigned;  (2)  the  social  motive  of  the  student  — 
doing  his  own  work  in  the  world;  (3)  the  individual 
motive  of  the  teacher  —  the  enlargement  of  the 
student's  life;  (4)  the  social  motive  of  the  teacher  — 
through  the  enlarged  life  of  the  student,  a  large  service 
to  society. 


CHAPTER  III 
ATTENTION  AND   CONDUCT 

If  the  function  of  the  school  is  the  development  of 
the  entire  child,  then  the  teacher  must  not  attempt  to 
educate  any  one  set  of  faculties  at  the  expense  of  any 
other,,-''He  must  not  try  to  train  the  mind  without 
at  the  same  time  training  the  body.  For  physical 
well-being  is  not  only  an  end  in  itself,  but  it  is  the 
basis  for  the  development  of  all  other  ends. 

Few  persons  realize  how  close  the  relationship  is 
between  good  health  and  consistent,  effective  atten- 
tion. While  the  relationship  is  not  one  of  cause  and 
effect,  it  is  certainly  one  as  close  as  that  of  condition 
and  resultant,  because  attention  being  a  most  fatiguing 
process,  it  follows  that  without  an  abundance  of 
vitality  upon  which  to  draw,  long-continued  atten- 
tion is  impossible. 

The  close  relationship  between  good  health,  or  the 
abundant  life,  and  conduct  is  proverbial.  Every  one 
knows  how  nearly  impossible  it  is  for  a  nervous 
child  in  the  home  or  in  the  school  to  behave  itself,  to 
order  its  conduct  consistently,  and  every  wise  parent 
or  teacher  takes  into  account  the  health  conditions  of 
the  child  under  his  direction  and  makes  due  allow- 
ance for  delinquencies  in  conduct  which  have  their 

18 


ATTENTION  AND  CONDUCT  19 

origin  in  deficient  nervous  supply  and  control.  We 
all  recognize  the  close  relationship  and  parallelism  be- 
tween mental  states  and  physical  states,  and  from  this 
close  relationship  has  arisen  the  pedagogical  maxim  or 
ideal  of  "a,  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body,"  thus  recog- 
nizing the  impossibility  of  the  one  without  the  other. 
It  is  a  well  established  and  accepted  fact  that  there  is 
no  psychosis  without  neurosis,  but  it  is  not  generally 
known  that  there  is  a  psychosis  peculiar  to  physical 
conditions  and  to  physical  and  neural  states.  The 
consumptive  is  proverbially  hopeful  and  cheerful, 
and  although  cognizant  of  the  fact  that  the  last  days 
are  not  far  distant,  he  Uves  in  the  mental  frame  of 
one  who  has  an  eternity  in  which  to  accomplish  his 
temporal  plans.  Suspicion,  irritabiUty,  stubbornness 
are  generally  observed  on  the  part  of  people  who  have 
been  overtaken  by  deafness.  A  high  degree  of  sen- 
sitiveness, physical  and  mental,  characterizes  the 
individual  who  has  early  in  life  been  deprived  of  the 
sense  of  sight.  The  otherwise  healthy  young  person 
who  has  been  crippled  so  that  he  cannot  enter  into 
the  sports,  games  and  contests  of  his  associates,  is  apt 
to  become  morose,  envious  and  uncharitable.  So 
that  in  this  most  general  and  by  no  means  scientifically 
demonstrated  way  we  see  for  our  purpose  here  the 
very  close  relationship  between  physical  states  and 
mental  attitudes,  and  the  very  close  relationship  be- 
tween complete  physical  fife  and  wholesome,  sym- 
metrical conduct.  This  close  relationship  has  in  it 
largely  the  intermediary  factor  of  attention,  the 
abundant  physical  fife  determining  the  direction  and 


20  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

the  power  of  the  attention,  which  in  its  turn  gives 
birth  to  the  style  of  conduct. 

It  is  true  that  as  a  man  "  thinketh  in  his  heart,"  so  is 
he,  but  this  means  supreme  attention,  the  focusing  of 
one's  hfe  upon  a  thing.  The  thinking  in  his  heart 
means  that  he  has  become  absorbed  in  the  thing  and 
lost  to  himself  and  to  the  world.  The  necessary  re- 
sult of  such  thinking  and  such  attention  is  conduct  in 
direct  harmony  with  the  object  of  attention.  No  one 
ever  puts  forth  effort  to  secure  a  thing  or  to  avoid  it 
unless  he  has  some  knowledge  of  that  thing,  and  no 
one  has  knowledge  of  a  thing  who  has  not  attended  to 
it.  Attention  is  a  prerequisite  to  knowledge,  and 
knowledge  is  a  prerequisite  to  behavior  of  conduct. 
So  that  the  world  of  attention  determines  more  largely 
than  anything  else,  through  knowledge,  the  manner 
of  conduct  or  behavior  of  the  individual  thus  attend- 
ing. The  modern  psychologists  are  recognizing  this 
close  relationship  between  knowledge,  the  result  of 
attention,  and  action.  In  his  "Outlines  of  Psychol- 
ogy," Royce  says  there  is  no  perception  without 
action.  In  fact  perception,  seeing  the  thing  face  to 
face  through  the  attentive  act,  and  action,  that  is, 
conduct,  behavior,  appropriate  response  to  adjust- 
ment, are  one  and  the  same  thing.  So  that  we  know 
the  thing  only  in  terms  of  what  we  can  do  with  it. 
The  piano  is  an  instrument  on  which  certain  musical 
effects  can  be  produced,  certain  musical  programs  can 
be  carried  out.  A  desk  is  not  a  piece  of  furniture 
with  certain  standard  measurements,  but  it  is  a  piece 
of  furniture  that  can  be  used  in  the  attainment  of 


ATTENTION   AND   CONDUCT  21 

certain  ends,  in  the  accomplishment  of  desirable  work. 
And  so  we  know  an  object  of  knowledge,  the  thing  as 
it  is  called,  not  as  a  thing  in  itself,  but  through  the 
use  to  which  it  can  be  put.  Its  effective  behavior, 
the  value  of  the  thing  as  it  now  exists,  is  accounted 
for  because  it  fulfills  certain  requirements  of  use. 

Furthermore,  this  close  relationship  of  attention 
and  conduct  is  shown  in  every  activity  of  life,  in 
the  accomplishment  of  every  task,  in  the  attainment 
of  every  end,  in  the  schoolroom,  in  the  workaday 
affairs  of  life.  We  must  know  through  attention,  in 
general  terms  at  least,  the  road  before  we  can  travel 
it.  This  is  true  of  the  student,  the  teacher,  the  car- 
penter, the  farmer,  the  lawyer,  —  any  one  who  gets 
anything  worth  while  done.  The  getting  it  done  can 
be  accomplished  only  by  attentive  knowledge,  how- 
ever partial,  fragmentary,  temporal  and  unsatis- 
factory for  the  long  run,  this  knowledge  may  be  at 
the  outset.  One's  conduct  is  shaped  and  determined 
by  his  objects  of  attention;  one's  conduct  is  an  abso- 
lute slave  to  his  attention;  it  is  affected,  bound  down 
by,  and  stands  absolutely  helpless  before  its  tyrant, 
attention.  However  anxious  the  bicyclist  may  be 
that  he  reach  his  journey's  end  without  a  mishap, 
observation  shows  that  he  always  inclines  toward  the 
destructive  object  when  it  first  claims  his  attention, 
and  only  by  sheer  physical  and  mental  strength, 
turns  aside.  Every  one  knows  the  force  of  an  insist- 
ent idea  which  will  not  down.  My  roommate  in- 
sisted that  he  was  strong  enough  to  break  his  watch 
chain.    This  idea  to  which  he  gave  attention  seemed 


22  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

to  prey  upon  him,  and  the  result  of  attention  to  this 
entirely  unnecessary  feat  of  strength  was  that  in  a 
comparatively  short  time  the  work  had  been  done. 
The  unworthy  or  the  worthy  deed  is  the  legitimate 
result  of  the  unworthy  or  the  worthy  object  of  atten- 
tion. Whoever  thinks  on  higher  things  will  advance 
toward  them;  whoever  thinks  on  lower  things,  will  go 
toward  them.  Here  we  see  the  significance  of  worthy 
ideals,  high  standards,  character  models,  in  the 
schoolroom  and  elsewhere,  and  we  get  a  hint,  but  only 
a  partial  hint,  of  the  disaster  and  ruin  that  follow  in 
the  wake  of  low  ideals,  bad  conduct,  and  small  ac- 
complishments as  they  are  kept  before  the  student. 

As  the  child  thinketh  in  his  heart,  the  man  in 
after  years  thinketh  in  his  heart  and  acts  out  in  his 
life.  Nothing  short  of  the  power  that  made  him  can 
save  him  from  such  a  fate.  It  is  not  too  much  here 
to  say  that  we  attain  salvation  through  attention  and 
that  we  debase  and  debauch  ourselves  into  damna- 
tion through  attention.  So  the  only  hope  of  a  cleaner 
and  better  life,  of  a  more  appropriate  response,  of 
efficient  conduct,  comes  not  primarily  nor  mainly 
through  lamentations,  but  it  comes  through  the  power 
of  attention.  Fortunate  is  the  man  who,  in  the 
presence  of  objects  or  situations  which  are  calculated 
to  blast  his  life,  can  turn  his  mind  and  heart  away, 
and  fix  them  upon  things  that  are  calculated  to 
order  his  conduct  on  the  higher  planes.  But  the 
multitude  is  not  strong  enough  to  win  in  this  way; 
and  so  I  have  said  to  my  students  again  and  again 
that  under  such  conditions  the  thing  to  do  is  simply 


ATTENTION   AND   CONDUCT  23 

to  remember  that  there  are  better  things  and  better 
ways;  to  remember  that  feet  have  been  given  us  in 
order  that  we  may  run  away,  and  that  we  must  run 
until  we  have  before  our  eyes  and  before  our  ears 
objects  of  attention  that  will  turn  our  feet  into 
wholesome  and  life-giving  paths.  The  only  hope  for 
many  a  man  and  many  a  woman  is  that  he  or  she 
stay  away  or  go  away. 

The  most  fortunate  thing  that  any  person  can  do 
who  wishes  to  live  an  effective  life,  who  wishes  to 
dehver  a  blow  for  God  and  humanity  that  will  be 
felt  for  all  time,  is  to  determine,  in  the  formative, 
plastic  years  of  his  life,  upon  systems  of  attentive 
objects,  —  philosophy,  literature,  science,  the  com- 
panionship of  the  best  men  and  women,  —  that  these 
may  be  the  stars  to  which  he  will  hitch  the  slow- 
rolUng  wagon  of  his  Hfe.  Only  by  following  this  or  a 
similar  program  can  one  be  sure  that  he  will  reach 
high  levels  in  his  conduct  and  that  he  will  not  travel 
the  muddy  roads  on  the  low  levels  which  lead  to  the 
swamps  of  immorality,  disease  and  death.  If  we 
long  for  fine  conduct,  for  well-ordered  behavior,  if  we 
wish  to  live  toward  higher  things  and  be  strong, 
rather  than  to  Uve  toward  lower  things  and  be  weak, 
this  wish  can  be  realized  only  as  we  meditate  upon, 
think  over,  attend  to  the  best  that  has  been  realized 
and  the  best  that  can  be  idealized. 


CHAPTER   IV 
SUGGESTION  AND   CONDUCT 

We  all  recognize,  to  a  degree  at  least,  what  an  im- 
portant factor  imitation  is  in  the  development  of  the 
child.  I  wish  in  this  chapter  to  invite  the  attention 
of  the  reader  to  the  importance  of  suggestion  as  the 
obverse  of  imitation.  The  child  imitates  what  is 
suggested  to  it  consciously  or  unconsciously  by  those 
with  whom  it  lives.  This  is  shown  in  all  social  fields. 
The  child  of  English-speaking  parents  does  not  in- 
herit the  English  language  nor  even  the  specific  skill 
to  use  the  Enghsh  language.  It  merely  inherits  the 
language  tendency  and  in  the  course  of  time  will  ex- 
press itself  by  the  use  of  some  language.  The  prob- 
ability is  that,  being  the  child  of  English-speaking 
parents,  it  will  speak  the  English  language.  This 
specific  skill  that  it  will  in  the  course  of  time  have 
attained  is  due  to  the  English  language  suggestions 
received  from  its  parents  and  other  associates  from 
infancy  up.  Had  the  child  at  the  time  of  its  birth  or 
a  few  months  afterward,  though  born  of  English- 
speaking  parents,  been  placed  in  a  German  family  in 
a  German  community,  it  would  just  as  easily  and 
effectively  have  used  the  German  language  instead  of 
the  English  language,  because  it  was  subjected  to  the 

24 


SUGGESTION   AND   CONDUCT  25 

German  language  suggestions.  Had  it  been  placed 
in  a  French  family  it  would  for  the  same  reason  have 
developed  the  general  language  tendency  into  the 
particular  French  language  skill.  If  a  child  is  born 
and  reared  in  a  family  in  which  only  good  language 
forms  are  used,  it  will,  through  the  force  of  sugges- 
tion, imitate  and  use  such  language  forms  only. 
Vice  versa,  if  the  child  is  born  and  reared  in  a  family 
that  uses  bad  language  forms,  it  will  just  as  naturally 
come  into  the  use,  through  suggestion,  of  these  bad 
language  forms.  Its  language  conduct,  so  to  speak,  is 
therefore  determined  almost  entirely  by  the  sugges- 
tions that  come  to  it  through  its  language  environ- 
ment. 

The  efifect  of  suggestion  on  conduct  is  as  plainly 
shown  in  the  field  of  religion  and  politics  as  any- 
where. Every  child  is  born  with  the  tendency  to 
identify  himself  with  social  forms  of  one  kind  or 
another,  —  political,  religious  and  so  on.  But  he  is 
not  born  with  the  tendency  to  be  a  Democrat,  a 
Republican,  a  Prohibitionist  or  a  Socialist.  From  his 
earliest  childhood,  however,  he  has  been  subjected  to 
political  suggestion,  especially  from  his  father.  If 
these  suggestions  come  from  a  Democrat,  the  strong 
probability  is  that  the  son  will  become  a  Democrat. 
If  the  suggestions  come  from  a  Republican,  he  will 
likewise  be  a  Republican,  and  so  on.  This  by  no 
means  implies  that  he  will  not  later  in  life  think  for 
himself,  invite  new  systems  of  suggestions  through 
his  reading  and  associations,  and  so  probably  change 
his  political  affiliation.     But  it  does  mean  that,  as  a 


26  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

rule,  the  young  son  of  a  Democrat  will  be  a  Demo- 
crat and  the  young  son  of  a  Republican  will  be  a 
Republican,  due  in  no  way  to  inheritance  but  entirely 
to  the  system  of  political  suggestions  to  which  each 
has  been  subjected. 

In  religious  life,  during  the  earlier  and  less  thought- 
ful years,  the  sons  and  daughters  of  Methodists  are 
Methodists;  of  CathoHcs  are  Catholics,  and  so  on  with 
all  the  church  organizations.  This  again  does  not 
mean  that  the  individual  may  not  later  invite  new 
systems  of  religious  suggestions  and  that  he  may  not 
then  change  his  church  affiliations. 

The  great  problem  of  the  King  Clothiers  is  to  sug- 
gest by  way  of  new  fashions  what  the  world  shall 
wear.  The  result  is  that  the  world  no  longer  wears 
out  its  clothes  but  discards  them,  being  unable  to 
resist  the  force  of  suggestion  as  it  comes  in  the  form 
of  new  styles  and  new  fashions.  Our  young  men  and 
young  women  think  that  they  might  as  well  be  dead 
as  to  wear  headgear  that  is  a  season  out  of  date. 

I  use  these  simple  illustrations,  which  must  appeal 
to  every  one  as  being  true,  with  the  view  of  impress- 
ing upon  the  mind  of  the  reader  the  very  intimate 
relationships  in  all  of  life's  organizations,  in  one's  sum 
total  of  conduct,  and  suggestion.  This  is  just  as 
plainly  seen  in  the  narrower  fields  of  behavior,  so 
called.  The  young  man  of  self-respect,  worthy  ideals 
and  a  pretty  well  defined  plan  of  life,  finds  that  his 
behavior,  although  it  may  never  sink  to  the  level  of 
dissipation  and  debauchery  and  may  never  rise  to  the 
white  table-land  of  consistent  efficiency,  is  neverthe- 


SUGGESTION  AND  CONDUCT  27 

less  varied,  in  harmony  with  the  suggestions  that 
come  to  him  from  the  people  among  whom  he  may, 
at  one  time  or  another,  be  living.  When  he  is  among 
high-minded,  efficient,  virile  people,  without  any  pre- 
tense whatever  and  without  any  false  front,  he  will 
react  upon  a  high  plane.  His  conduct  will  be  the 
finest.  He  will  be  a  prince  among  men.  When  he 
dwells  among  the  commonplace;  when  his  associates 
are  those  of  narrow  vision;  when  his  companions  are 
those  whose  dominating  idea  for  the  most  part  is 
selfishness;  when  his  community  is  such  as  to  admit  of 
a  degree  of  coarseness  and  vulgarity;  without  any  in- 
tentional compromise  on  his  part  and  all  uncon- 
sciously to  himself,  through  the  force  of  the  multitude 
of  suggestions  that  come  to  him  from  these  lower 
levels,  he  finds  himself  living  the  commonplace  life,  far 
beneath  the  altitudes  at  which  he  might  be  living. 

The  effect  of  suggestion  upon  conduct  is  shown 
nowhere  to  better  advantage  than  it  is  in  the  life  of 
the  young  person  who  has  not  yet  chosen  his  life's 
task.  The  vigorous,  hungry-minded,  clean,  young 
farmer  boy  with  small  experience  and  narrow  horizon 
will  be  carried  away  by  the  brilliant  attorney  when  he 
hears  him  plead  a  case  in  court;  he  will  decide  in 
his  mind  and  in  his  heart  to  be  a  lawyer.  And  when 
he  sees  a  man  that  has  fallen  a  victim  of  disease, 
snatched  from  the  jaws  of  death  by  a  well  trained 
physician,  he  thrills  with  enthusiasm  for  the  pro- 
fession of  medicine  and  dedicates  his  life  to  the 
science  of  physic.  In  their  turn  a  dozen  callings 
appeal  to  him  before  he  finally  discovers  himself,  gets 


28  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE  TEACHER 

on  his  feet,  has  his  bearings  and  hears  the  definite 
call  to  service. 

I,  It  is  doubtful  if  anything  gets  such  a  hold,  so  in- 
sidiously and  permanently,  upon  an  individual  early 
in  life  as  do  ideals  of  conduct.  Through  suggestion 
these  ideals  are  very  early  ground  into  the  child  all 
unconsciously  to  himself.  The  farmer  boy  by  his 
hard  labor  has  saved  a  few  dollars.  On  the  Fourth 
of  July  his  father  gives  him  a  holiday  and  grants 
him  permission  to  take  from  his  hard-earned  savings, 
money  for  the  day.  The  boy  counts  over  his  money 
again  and  again,  takes  a  dime  or  a  quarter,  goes  to 
town,  has  a  good  time  and  comes  home  at  night  with 
a  sense  of  guilt,  feeling  that  he  is  developing  into 
a  veritable  spendthrift.  In  all  probabiHty  neither 
his  father  nor  his  mother  had  told  him  that  it  was 
wrong  for  a  child  to  spend  a  little  money  on  such 
occasions.  But  during  the  first  years  of  his  life  he 
has  seen  his  father  earning  his  money  a  dollar  at  a 
time  and  has  observed  economy  on  the  part  of  his 
father  in  every  movement;  and  without  any  teaching 
or  discipline  upon  this  point,  the  subtle  suggestion 
has  done  its  work,  and  the  lesson  of  economy  has 
gotten  into  the  blood.  On  the  other  hand,  the  spoiled 
town  child  will  destroy  ten  dollars'  worth  of  fireworks 
on  the  Fourth  of  July  and  go  to  bed  in  the  evening 
disgusted  that  he  has  had  no  chance  to  have  a  good 
time.  He  has  fallen  victim  to  the  force  of  suggestion 
as  it  has  come  to  him  from  neighbor  children,  and 
through  the  reckless  spending  of  money  as  he  has 
observed  it  in  the  city. 


SUGGESTION   AND  CONDUCT  29 

The  effect  of  suggestion  upon  the  conduct  of  an 
individual  is  probably  nowhere  more  plainly  seen 
than  in  the  effect  of  the  mob  or  the  crowd  upon  an 
otherwise  deliberate,  well-behaved,  law-abiding  citizen. 
The  best  athletes  in  our  colleges  are  results  of  the 
wise  suggestions  on  the  part  of  the  coach  or  some 
other  friend.  Nothing  buoys  the  athlete  up  so 
quickly,  and  causes  him  to  live  up  to  something  more 
than  himself,  as  does  the  incidental  suggestion  on  the 
part  of  a  friend  that  all  eyes  are  upon  him  and  that 
the  fine  thing  is  that  they  are  not  going  to  be  dis- 
appointed. Nothing  so  brings  the  student  to  his  feet 
as  the  remark  casually  made  by  the  teacher  that  he 
always  expects,  as  a  matter  of  course,  fine  work  from 
this  student.  Assume  that  your  young  friend  has 
high  ideals.  If  you  know  better,  assume  it  anyhow! 
Talk  to  him  as  if  you  knew  he  had,  and  before  you  are 
aware  these  high  ideals  will  be  his  and  he  will  be 
worshipping  and  attaining  them.  The  story  of  the 
wholesome  effect  of  a  clean  community  upon  a  young 
life  remains  to  be  told,  and  the  story  of  the  dis- 
astrous effect  of  the  suggestion  of  a  community  of 
low  ideals  cannot  be  told. 

The  largest  problems  of  the  teacher  are  not  the 
ones  that  arise  in  mathematics  or  chemistry  nor  even 
the  very  large  one  that  so  often  confronts  him  of 
meeting  his  financial  obligations.  The  largest  problem 
of  the  teacher  is  that  of  deciding  the  objects  of  sug- 
gestion that  shall  do  their  work  on  the  children.  !  The 
largest  problem  confronting  a  parent  is  not  the  problem 
of  his  professional  or  business  caUing,  important  as 


30  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS   FOR  THE  TEACHER 

that  may  be.  His  largest  problem  is  that  of  deciding 
on  the  things  that  his  son  and  daughter  shall  see  and 
hear.  It  is  of  comparatively  small  importance  whether 
I  live  near  my  place  of  business  or  far  away  from  it. 
If  I  live  far  away  from  it,  the  cars  at  small  expense 
will  carry  me  there;  but  the  question  of  suprem- 
est  importance  is  the  community  in  which  my  chil- 
dren shall  live,  —  what,  during  their  plastic  years,  they 
shall  see  and  hear  —  the  children  with  whom  they 
shall  play,  and  the  ideals  of  the  parents  of  the  children 
with  whom  they  play.  For  in  this  particular  the 
price  demanded  to  redeem  the  children  from  the 
deadly  effects  of  having  attended  to  the  small  and 
the  mean  and  the  commonplace  is  a  price  so  large 
that  no  man  can  pay  it. 


;  CHAPTER  V 

BELIEF  AND   CONDUCT 

There  is  a  maxim  which  says  that  all  the  world 
loves  a  lover.  This  is  true.  It  is  just  as  true  that  all 
the  world  hates  a  hater,  that  the  world  disbelieves  in 
a  person  who  believes  in  nothing;  that  the  world  be- 
lieves in  a  believer,  and  that  people  take  a  positive 
attitude  toward  a  positive  character.  All  this  is  but 
saying  that  every  mental  attitude  is  catching  and  that 
to  a  very  large  degree  each  person  creates  the  atmos- 
phere in  which  he  lives.  Not  only  does  his  own 
attitude  determine  his  interpretation  of,  the  attitudes 
of  others  toward  himself,  but  it  determines  what  these 
attitudes  shall  be.  Thus  one  becomes  socially  con- 
firmed in  his  own  mental  position  or  life  attitudes. 
To  the  lover  all  things  are  lovely,  to  the  hater  all 
things  are  hateful;  and  he  who  has  great  practical  faith 
in  men  and  affairs  will  find  everything  contributing 
to  the  accomplishment  of  his  ends. 

There  is  certainly  nothing  that  one  needs  more 

than  social  confirmation.     When  Jesus  was  on  the 

Mount  of  Transfiguration,  Moses  and  Elias  appeared 

to  confirm  the  principle  that  He  had  been  insisting 

upon  when  He  said,   '^  Destroy  this  temple  and  in 

three  days  I  will  raise  it  up"  namely,  the  principle 

31 


32  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR  THE   TEACHER 

that  death  does  not  end  all,  that  in  the  sense  of 
extinction  there  is  no  death.  Every  worker  in  the 
world  needs  social  confirmation,  and  he  goes  down 
from  the  Mount  on  which  this  social  confirmation  comes 
to  him  and  takes  up  the  workaday  affairs  of  Hfe  renewed 
in  vigor,  reconsecrated  in  purpose. 

Not  only  is  it  true  that  he  who  believes  has  the 
social  confirmation  of  the  belief  of  others  in  him  and  in 
his  work,  but  it  is  also  true  that  nothing  contributes 
more  completely  to  personal  enlargement,  to  being 
actually  equal  to  an  undertaking,  than  does  the  belief 
that  one  possesses  of  being  equal  to  it.  Next  to 
actual  inability,  nothing  is  so  great  a  handicap  as  to 
believe  that  you  cannot  accomplish  certain  things. 
The  student  who  does  not  have  the  abihty  to  master 
certain  tasks  is  doubtless  the  most  powerless  of  all 
students,  but  his  near  neighbor  is  the  student  who 
beheves  that  he  is  not  able  to  do  the  tasks  and  who 
behaves  accordingly. 

The  mother  said  to  her  child  who  was  trying  to 
push  the  table  about  the  room,  "You  cannot  move  the 
table;  it  is  as  large  as  you  are."  The  child  replied, 
"I  can  move  the  table;  I  am  as  large  as  it  is."  Half 
of  the  people  in  the  world  fail  to  accomplish  their 
best  because  the  task  set  is  as  large  as  they  are.  The 
other  half  outdo  themselves  because  they  believe  that 
they  are  as  large  as  the  task  set  before  them.  We  all 
appreciate  what  a  wonderful  force  worthy  ideals  have 
in  one's  Hfe.  We  all  know  that  there  is  but  one 
method  whereby  these  ideals  may  be  realized,  and 
that  there  is  certainly  no  greater  dissipation  than 


BELIEF   AND   CONDUCT  33 

worshiping  ideals  and  yet  not  putting  into  practical 
use  the  one  method  whereby  they  may  be  realized, 
namely,  the  method  of  persistent,  consistent  applica- 
tion in  their  attainment.  It  is  not,  however,  always 
recognized  that  aside  from  the  force  of  interest  but 
one  thing  is  powerful  enough  to  keep  an  individual  at 
the  task  of  realization,  year  in  and  year  out,  decade 
in  and  decade  out,  and  that  is  the  belief  that  the 
thing  set  is  tremendously  worth  while  and  the  belief 
in  one's  self  as  equal  to  the  accomplishment  of  it.  j^- 

The  great  workers  and  the  great  pieces  of  work 
which  they  have  accomplished  can  be  explained  in 
one  way.  It  is  true  in  politics,  it  is  true  in  business, 
it  is  true  in  the  church. 

My  friend,  as  a  boy,  had  the  abiding  feeling  that 
the  thing  most  worth  while  was  public  life,  statesman- 
ship or  politics,  if  you  please.  Without  any  definite 
reason  for  it,  he  had  the  abiding  belief  that  this  was 
the  field  in  which  he  could  realize  himself  most 
fully  and  render  the  largest  service.  He  found  his 
way  to  a  literary  degree  at  Harvard,  to  a  legal  degree 
at  Columbia,  and  then  to  a  very  humble  position  in 
pubUc  official  life.  Promotion  followed  quickly  upon 
promotion.  Belief  in  the  importance  of  the  thing  and 
of  his  being  equal  to  accomplish  it  grew  with  his 
preparation  and  his  performance.  He  has  filled  with 
credit  to  himself  and  with  great  benefit  to  our  country 
numerous  positions  of  responsibility  and  trust,  and 
to-day  is  one  of  the  largest  and  most  potent  factors  in 
our  public  life.  He  lives  at  the  capital  of  our  nation, 
a  monument  of  practical  faith,  or  belief,  in  statesman- 


34  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE    TEACHER 

ship  or  politics  as  a  mission,  and  in  himself  as  the 
political  missionary. 

A  boy  on  account  of  delicate  health  was  obliged  to 
give  up  his  work  as  a  student  in  his  middle  teens,  a 
thing  in  itself  unfortunate.  But  he  said  that  he  was 
not  made  for  nothing,  that  if  he  could  not  live  his 
life  indoors,  he  would  live  it  out  of  doors,  and  that 
out  in  the  open  he  would  deliver  a  blow  that  would 
count.  He  was  interested  in  all  of  the  institutions  of 
civilization,  but  he  was  instinctively  a  business  man; 
every  fiber  of  his  being  tingled  at  the  call  of  large  en- 
terprises. He  started  in  the  humble  position  of  clerk 
with  an  Iowa  land  firm.  Promotion  here  followed 
rapidly  upon  promotion.  It  is  a  rare  treat  to  hear 
this  man  enthuse  over  a  business  proposition  or  a 
business  principle.  He  is  no  miser,  —  he  is  a  generous 
man.  There  is  no  good  cause  which  does  not  elicit  his 
sympathy,  and  many  such  causes  have  his  good  sup- 
port. He  likes  the  game  of  business.  To  him  there  is 
probably  nothing  in  all  the  world  so  fascinating  as  the 
material  development  and  prosperity  of  the  country. 
This  man,  standing  upon  a  sane  basis  of  practical 
faith,  believing  tremendously  in  the  objective  work  of 
the  world  and  in  himself  as  one  equal  to  do  his  share 
of  it,  has  passed  rapidly  from  one  responsibility  to 
another,  via  the  President's  cabinet  to  the  presidency 
of  one  of  the  largest  business  enterprises  in  the  world. 
He  is  a  living  monument  to  practical  faith  or  belief  in 
the  business  world. 

A  certain  young  clergyman  was  ordained  a  bishop 
and  sent  to  the  Orient  to  organize  and  develop  the 


BELIEF   AND   CONDUCT  35 

interests  of  one  of  our  great  religious  denominations. 
In  person  and  by  letter  his  friends  throughout  the 
country  commiserated  with  him,  but  his  reply  soon 
taught  them  that  they  had  not  understood  his  motive. 
This  young  man  in  his  inner  vision  saw  an  opportunity 
hidden  from  the  eyes  of  others,  and  he  beheved  in 
himself  as  divinely  called  to  meet  the  opportunity. 
His  seven  years  as  bishop  in  the  isles  beyond  the  sea 
have  become  almost  common  history  in  the  minds  of 
the  people,  and  there  probably  has  never  been  since 
the  days  of  our  Master  a  soul  surrendered  more  fully 
to  the  will  of  his  Father.  I  know  of  no  finer  illustra- 
tion of  self-forgetfulness,  and  of  complete  surrender  to 
the  call  of  the  divine  mission,  than  has  been  shown  by 
this  man  in  twice  declining  the  invitation  to  one  of 
the  most  dignified,  honorable  and  responsible  ecclesias- 
tical positions  in  America;  preferring  rather  a  life  of 
toil,  hardship  and  sacrifice,  where  every  movement  of 
his  life  would  be  an  act  of  service,  than  a  life  of 
comparative  ease,  dignity  and  quiet,  where  his  time 
necessarily  would  be  given  over  more  to  routine  and 
ceremonial.  And  so  to-day,  as  a  comparatively  young 
man,  Bishop  Brent  lives  in  the  Philippine  Islands,  a 
living  monument  of  practical  faith  or  belief  in  the 
world  of  religious  forces;  and  even  he  who  runs  may 
read  enough  of  this  life  to  inspire  him  to  larger  tasks 
and  larger  faithfulness  in  the  performance  of  them. 

These  are  illustrations  of  the  principle  from  only 
three  fields;  the  behavior,  the  conduct  of  life  in  each 
instance,  has  been  determined  by  the  belief  that  the 
individual  has  had  in  the  thing  and  in  himself. 


36  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

Furthermore,  it  is  true  that  he  who  believes  is  the 
only  one  who  can  speak  with  authority.  He  only 
risks;  therefore,  he  alone  experiences  and  knows. 
He  only  who  believes  in  an  enterprise  will  invest  in  it 
and  thereby  gain  knowledge  of  it.  He  only  who  be- 
lieves in  goodness  will  be  good,  and  therefore  he  alone 
can  speak  with  authority  on  goodness.  He  only  who 
believes  in  God  will  experience  God.  He  who  believes 
not  in  goodness  is  inehgible  to  speak  upon  goodness. 
He  who  believes  not  in  God  speaks  with  no  degree  of 
authority  whatever  upon  things  that  pertain  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.  Waiving  handicaps,  accidents  and 
so  forth,  one's  work  is  large  and  valuable  in  propor- 
tion to  his  practical  faith;  and  one's  practical  conduct, 
his  life  of  application,  is  directly  determined  by  such 
belief  and  is  proportionate  to  it. 


CHAPTER  VI 
FEAR  AND   CONDUCT 

In  this  chapter  I  wish  to  show  the  sinfulness  of 
being  afraid.  It  is  a  sin  to  be  less  than  one  may  be. 
The  man  who  is  not  as  good  and  as  strong  as  he 
might  be  is  a  sinner,  even  if  he  has  never  committed 
any  positive  offense.  There  is  probably  nothing  that 
leads  more  quickly  to  weakness,  to  the  destruction  of 
power,  than  does  fear. 

The  healthy  person  ought  to  be  ashamed  to  be 
afraid  of  anything.  The  evil  effects  of  fear  are  plainly 
shown  in  the  physical  life,  in  the  pallor  of  the  cheek, 
in  the  trembling  of  every  muscular  fiber  in  the  body, 
in  the  parched  mouth,  in  the  disturbance  of  the  vital 
processes,  in  the  temporary  powerlessness  of  one  or 
more  of  the  sense  organs,  and  in  the  actual  poison- 
ing of  the  blood.  The  more  superficial  and  objective 
of  these  signs  are  known  to  all,  but  it  is  not  generally 
known  that  as  a  result  of  intense  fear  the  sense  of 
hearing  has  been  multiplied  a  hundred  or  even  a 
thousand  fold,  but  such  is  the  case.  And  it  is  not 
generally  known  that  an  excessively  frightened  animal 
or  human  being  during  the  process  of  digestion  will 
secrete  an  amount  of  poison  which  when  extracted  will 

kill  small  animals.     In  intense  fear  the  body  is  to  a 

37 


38  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

degree  paralyzed  and  poisoned,  and  it  is  doubtful  if 
one  is  ever  so  sound  physically  after  the  experience  of 
intense  fear  as  he  otherwise  would  have  been.  The 
discoloration  of  one's  hair  in  a  comparatively  short 
time,  due,  the  physiologists  tell  us,  to  fear,  is  com- 
monly known,  and  is  illustrative  of  the  ruinous  effects 
of  fear  upon  the  organism. 

The  disastrously  weakening  effect  of  fear  is  seen  in 
the  mental  Hfe  as  well  as  in  the  physical  life.  It  is 
nothing  less  than  temporary  insanity,  and  whoever  is 
in  a  position  of  authority  and  discipline  should  know 
this.  The  havoc  that  is  wrought  in  the  school  and  in 
the  home  through  fear  is  too  great  to  be  credible. 
I  am  not  here  suggesting  a  program  of  soft  pedagogy. 
On  the  contrary,  I  would  exercise  the  ordinance  of  the 
laying  on  of  hands  in  the  home  or  in  the  school  when 
it  seems  wise  to  do  so,  but  I  should  be  careful  never 
to  subject  the  child  to  intense  fear.  For  the  child 
who  is  frightened  is  always  subnormal,  and  his  per- 
formances while  in  this  state  are  always  partial  and 
unsatisfactory.  He  may  rally  and  do  better  in  the 
future  than  he  did  in  the  past  because,  though  the 
disciplinarian  cannot  realize  the  baneful  effects  of  fear, 
the  child  does  not  care  for  the  re-experience,  and  bo 
improves  his  conduct.  But  the  improvement  is  not 
the  direct  result  of  the  fear  which  the  child  has  experi- 
enced. His  improved  performances  are  possible  in 
spite  of  the  depletion  of  physical  vigor  and  mental 
energy  and  not  because  of  them. 

We  have  this  same  point  of  weakness  through  fear, 
or  the  sinfulness  of  being  afraid,  illustrated  in  the 


FEAR   AND   CONDUCT  39 

spiritual  life.  Through  the  centuries  conscientious 
people  have  professed  to  believe  that  first  things  are 
first,  have  been  wilhng  to  put  first  things  first  and 
have  been  correct  in  their  views  as  to  what  things  are 
first,  yet  probably  the  least  progress  in  any  phase  of 
human  life  has  been  in  the  spiritual  life.  The  people 
forget  that  they  are  the  children  of  a  King;  they  for- 
get that,  inefficient  as  they  are,  they  are  nevertheless 
the  best  the  world  has.  They  falter,  they  fear,  they 
go  forward  to  the  performance  of  their  duty  as  if 
they  were  afraid  of  God  and  man  rather  than  as  if 
they  were  performing  a  labor  of  love.  The  brightest 
day  that  could  dawn  for  religion  would  be  the  day  in 
which  our  sons  and  our  daughters  would  love  the  best, 
worship  it,  believe  in  it,  and  with  swift  feet  would 
run  gladly  on  missions  of  mercy  and  service.  The 
darkest  day  in  the  rehgious  life  has  been  the  day  when 
the  people  betook  themselves  from  the  world,  cowered, 
were  faint-hearted  and  worshiped  God  as  a  terrible 
God  and  not  as  a  Heavenly  Father. 

The  successful  business  man  is  the  one  who  sees 
his  way  more  or  less  clearly,  who  believes  in  the 
thing  he  is  about  to  undertake,  and  who  believes  him- 
self equal  to  the  undertaking.  He  is  a  man  who 
enters  the  business  arena  with  firm  and  elastic  step, 
with  a  high  head,  with  assurance  and  thoughtfulness 
written  on  his  brow.  It  is  the  business  man  who  is 
wilUng  to  risk  who  endures.  The  business  world 
stands  aside  for  such  a  man,  and  his  road  to  success 
is  broad  and  straight. 

No  coach  can  win  games  with  a  team  that  is  afraid 


40        funOamental  facts  for  the  teacher 

that  it  will  be  defeated.  And  the  team  has  never  been 
found  good  enough  to  win  games  when  the  coach  is 
afraid  that  it  is  going  to  be  defeated.  This  is  true  of 
all  competition  —  debating,  oratory.  As  well  close 
the  doors  of  the  educational  institution,  much  better 
do  so,  than  to  put  at  the  head  of  the  institution  a 
man  or  a  woman  who  fears  that  the  young  men  and 
the  young  women  will  not  finally  do  great  things. 
The  stamp  of  fear  is  the  stamp  of  death. 

In  the  schoolroom  nothing  contributes  so  certainly 
to  confusion,  misunderstanding,  misconduct,  and  to 
impossible  situations,  as  does  a  lack  of  self-control  and 
an  absence  of  poise  on  the  part  of  the  principal  or  the 
teacher.  Nothing  contributes  so  certainly  to  quiet, 
application,  efficiency,  obedience,  community  interest, 
high  ideals,  individual  and  institutional  self-respect, 
as  do  perfect  poise  and  fearlessness  on  the  part  of  the 
one  who  is  called  master.  Nothing  can  happen  to  the 
institution  or  to  the  community  of  so  great  value  as 
the  coming  into  it  of  a  few  young  people  whose  lives 
are  clean,  whose  ideals  are  high,  whose  attainments 
are  correspondingly  large,  and  who  move  forward  to 
the  attainment  of  much  larger  things,  perfectly  fear- 
less of  any  one  or  anything  —  not  the  braggart,  not 
the  bully,  but  one  who  has  nothing  to  fear  because  he 
has  been  his  best  and  done  his  best. 

Each  one  of  us  started  with  an  inheritance  for 
which  we  were  in  no  sense  responsible.  The  only 
thing  to  fear  is  that  we  may  not  realize  upon  our  in- 
heritance. Every  one  who  has  done  markedly  great 
things  in  the  world  has  been  a  man  or  a  woman  who 


FEAR   AND   CONDUCT  41 

has  feared  not.  Not  only  the  mean  work  but  the 
small  work  has  been  done  by  cowards.  No  coward 
ever  did  a  thing  that  was  worth  while,  and  no  brave- 
hearted  man  who  has  attempted  it  has  failed  to  do 
something  that  is  worth  while.  All  Uterature,  all 
secular  and  sacred  history,  all  contemporary  observa- 
tion confirm  the  principle  that  fear  depletes  human 
energy,  physical,  mental  and  spiritual,  and  that  it  is  a 
mark  of  physical  or  mental  weakness  to  be  afraid. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SELF-RESPECT  AND   CONDUCT 

The  belief  that  one  is  equal  to  great  things  is  one 
of  the  prerequisites  of  the  accompUshment  of  them. 
Whoever  regards  himself  as  possessing  positive,  effi- 
cient characteristics  has  a  legitimate  basis  for  a 
degree  of  self-respect.  Whoever  regards  himself  as 
inefficient,  whose  self-respect  is  low,  undertakes  small 
things  or  nothing,  and  the  performance  is  conse- 
quently of  small  value. 

One  of  the  greatest  stimulations  that  comes  to  a 
human  being  is,  as  I  have  suggested  in  a  former 
chapter,  that  which  comes  by  way  of  social  confirma- 
tion. The  uplift  that  comes  to  the  student  because 
his  teacher  or  his  mates  beheve  in  him  is  invaluable. 
Many  a  worker  has  done  less  than  he  is  capable  of 
doing  because  he  lacked  this  social  confirmation;  and 
many  a  one  has  outdone  himself  because  just  at  the 
right  time  the  appropriate  social  confirmation  was 
given.  No  one  becomes  so  weak  that  his  power  may 
not  be  increased  by  such  confirmation,  and  no  one 
becomes  so  powerful  that  he  does  not  need  it. 

Former  successes  also  make  for  added  increment  of 

power.     The  knowledge  that  one  has  done  well  is  a 

stimulation  of  greatest  value.     To  know  that  one  has 

42 


SELF-RESPECT  AND   CONDUCT  43 

not  done  illy,  that  one  has  not  taken  certain  mis- 
steps, that  one  is  free  from  certain  habits,  —  success 
along  all  these  lines  means  power  on  the  part  of  the 
individual  in  the  future.  The  bare  knowledge  even 
of  one's  opportunity  to  prepare  for  great  things  is  an 
increment  of  power  to  one  who  has  taken  advantage 
of  these  opportunities.  Not  only  the  power  that  has 
been  developed  in  the  preparation,  but  a  man's  mere 
knowledge  that  he  is  college  bred,  aside  from  the 
facts  that  he  may  have  gained  while  pursuing  his 
college  course,  —  this  bare  fact  means  much  to  the 
individual.  ^ 

All  of  these  things  —  social  confirmation,  former 
successes,  the  mere  knowledge  of  the  opportunities  to 
get  ready  —  contribute  to  success  because  they  have  in 
them,  in  some  subtle,  indescribable,  appreciative  way, 
the  increments  of  power,  and  whoever  possesses  them 
has  a  much  larger  prospect  than  the  one  who  does 
not.  But  none  of  these  things  are  of  first  impor- 
tance. Why  is  it  that  one  man  succeeds  and  another 
does  not?  The  people  believe  in  both;  both  are  re- 
spectable; both  have  had  the  best  opportunities  for 
preparation.  People  say  they  do  not  know  why  the 
one  goes  forward  and  the  other  does  not. 

I  should  Uke  to  make  a  suggestion,  if  not  indeed  an 
explanation,  which,  it  seems  to  me,  strikes  a  vital 
point.  It  is  this:  a  fine  self-respect,  the  knowledge 
of  one's  own  high  motives,  of  one's  unselfish  purposes 
and  the  consciousness  of  one's  clean  life,  a  perfect 
willingness  for  the  X-ray  to  be  turned  on,  perfect 
indifference  as  to  who  knows,  perfect  frankness,  open- 


44  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

ness  and  completeness  of  action — these  things  make  for 
power  in  their  possessor  as  no  amount  of  culture,  re- 
finement, education  or  experience  can  do,  and  these 
are  some  of  the  elements  of  self-respect.  Those  who 
do  not  possess  fine  self-respect  eliminate  the  founda- 
tion upon  which  every  one  must  stand  when  he  de- 
Hvers  his  blow,  and  with  the  foundation  tottering  and 
gone  the  blow  is  ineffective.  The  power  that  human 
beings  have  exercised  in  this  world  is  power  through 
their  self-respect. 

Many  a  man,  for  example,  has  fallen  short  of  com- 
plete self-respect  because  he  has  fallen  short  of  com- 
plete truthfulness.  It  is  a  hard  but  nevertheless  true 
saying  that  but  few  people  live  and  speak  the  plain 
truth  at  all  times.  They  quibble  in  their  speech  and 
in  their  conduct.  Such  a  deficiency  may  be  known 
only  to  him  who  is  thus  deficient,  but  he  moves  in  a 
winding  path  and  not  in  a  straight  line. 

Many  men  of  good  repute  fall  short  of  complete 
self-respect  because  they  fall  short  of  complete  chastity 
and  purity.  And  there  is  nothing  in  all  the  world 
that  tends,  all  unconsciously  to  the  individual,  to 
throw  the  weakness  of  indigo  blue  instead  of  the 
strength  of  iron  red  into  the  blood  so  much  as  does 
this  shortage.  Without  knowing  it  such  a  one  will 
go  forward  with  a  faltering  step. 

Many  men  fall  short  of  complete  self-respect  be- 
cause they  fall  short  of  complete  application.  They 
know  that  the  opportunity  is  theirs,  they  have  heard 
the  call  and  accepted  it,  but  in  retrospect  they  find 
that  they  have  shirked  their  work,  and  the  fine  power 


SELF-RESPECT   AND   CONDUCT  45 

that  emanates  from  the  consciousness  of  having  met 
from  hour  to  hour  every  task  squarely  and  fully  is 
gone. 

Many  men  fall  short  of  complete  self-respect 
because  they  have  fallen  short  of  complete  poise. 
What  is  more  calculated  to  bring  disgust,  shame,  dis- 
couragement and  the  consciousness  of  inefficiency 
than  the  knowledge  that  one  has  been  stampeded  or 
excited  or  frightened  into  conduct  that  is  unbecoming 
a  man?  And  what  is  so  conducive  to  a  high  degree 
of  self-respect  as  is  the  consciousness  that  under  all 
conditions  of  life  one  has  had  his  balance,  that  he  has 
maintained  his  poise,  that  he  has  been  master  of  his 
own  thoughts  and  of  his  own  movements?  In  every 
situation  of  life,  passion  is  ruinous  to  the  individual 
and  makes  great  work  impossible,  while  on  the  other 
hand  nothing  contributes  more  completely  to  fullness 
of  life  and  largeness  of  work  than  does  the  personal 
power  which  one  realizes  in  himself  through  poise. 

If  one  wishes  to  be  a  power  in  the  world,  standing 
out  in  the  open  at  midday,  doing  the  work  of  a  grown 
man,  if  one  abhors  the  day  of  weak  things,  of  small 
work,  of  inefl&ciency  and  of  shame,  let  him  under- 
stand that  he  must  travel  the  roads  of  truthfulness, 
chastity,  application,  justice,  poise,  and  indeed  all  the 
roads  of  personal  and  social  virtue  to  the  end,  that 
only  by  so  doing  can  he  have  that  fine  self-respect 
which  is  the  greatest  power  in  the  world  for  individual 
achievement. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
IDEALS   AND   CONDUCT 

Nothing  shows  so  plainly  and  nothing  is  revealed 
so  unmistakably  as  one's  ideals  in  his  work.  The 
value  of  the  work,  of  the  life,  of  the  conduct  of  an  in- 
dividual is  determined  very  largely  by  his  ideals  and 
his  motives.  The  artist  stands  before  the  canvas, 
brush  in  hand,  but  the  value  of  his  work  to  the  world 
cannot  be  estimated  until  his  ideal,  or  the  motive  for 
his  work,  is  known.  The  same  is  true  of  the  sculptor. 
By  the  hundreds  young  men  are  annually  entering  the 
profession  of  law.  The  value  of  their  work  is  not 
at  all  determined  by  the  profession  which  they  enter. 
Probably  no  larger  service  has  ever  been  rendered  to 
the  world  than  that  which  has  been  rendered  by  the 
well-trained  lawyer  with  high  ideals  of  service  and 
worthy  motives  of  life;  and  probably  no  one  has 
hindered  the  progress  of  civil  institutions  more  than 
has  the  equally  brilliant  lawyer  whose  ideals  have  been 
low  and  whose  motives,  unworthy. 

Who  can  estimate  the  value  of  the  service  to  man- 
kind that  has  been  rendered  by  the  well-trained 
physician  whose  motive  has  been  to  serve  humanity 
and  whose  ideal  has  been  the  abundant  physical  life 
for  human  kind?  And  who  can  estimate  the  misery 
and  death  that  have  followed  in  the  wake  of  phy- 

46 


IDEALS   AND   CONDUCT  d7 

sicians  whose  ideals  were  personal  prosperity  and 
whose  methods  consisted  in  coddling  and  deceiving 
the  public?  The  value  even  of  the  work  of  the  min- 
istry is  no  less  determined  by  the  ideal  possessed  by 
the  one  who  enters  this  highest  of  all  callings.  To 
him  who  sees  the  largeness  of  the  opportunity,  who 
thrills  to  the  call  of  large  service,  there  is  no  field 
which  offers  such  large  and  manifold  opportunities  as 
does  the  ministry.  But  for  him  who  enters  the 
ministry  with  the  ideal  and  motive  of  ease  and  com- 
parative luxury,  of  enjoying  a  degree  of  leadership 
among  the  people,  there  probably  is  not  a  value 
small  enough  to  express  the  worth  of  his  work.  To 
one  who  has  learned  to  think  not  only  in  counties  and 
states  but  who  is  large  enough  to  think  in  continents, 
the  work  of  the  missionary  looms  up  large  and  im- 
portant. The  value  of  the  service  rendered  by  such 
a  one  is  beyond  all  telling,  but  my  friend  recites  an 
instance  of  a  young  man  who  longed  to  be  a  mission- 
ary and  to  go  into  the  middle  of  China  where  the  foot 
of  man  had  never  trod.  My  friend  is  right  in  classi- 
fying the  motive  here  as  romance  and  not  as  religion, 
and  certainly  the  religious  work  accomplished  by  a  per- 
son with  such  an  ideal  would  hardly  be  worth  reciting. 
The  value  of  the  services  rendered  by  a  teacher  is 
determined  almost  entirely  in  the  light  of  his  ideal, 
his  motive  in  his  work.  Teachers  of  comparatively 
small  training  have  done  great  work  because  they 
were  seeking  right  ends;  and  teachers  of  the  finest 
training  have  sometimes  done  work  of  little  or  no 
value,  if  indeed  they  have  not  done  positive  injury, 


48  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

because  they  were  headed  nowhere  and  seeking  noth- 
ing in  particular,  unless  indeed  it  were  some  selfish, 
personal  end.  My  blacksmith  friend,  who  sometimes 
invites  me  to  his  shop  to  follow  him  at  his  work,  is  a 
skillful  performer.  He  is  known  far  and  wide,  and 
he  is  greatly  admired  and  loved  by  all.  This  is  not 
so  much  due  to  the  fact  that  he  is  an  artist,  although 
he  is  in  his  profession,  as  it  is  to  his  fine  motives  and 
to  his  ideal.  I  have  never  had  the  pleasure  of  visit- 
ing his  shop  without  being  taught  some  new  turn  in 
his  work.  He  has  the  same  joy  in  nailing  the  shoe  to 
the  hoof  of  the  horse  that  the  musician  has  in  render- 
ing a  concerto.  No  wonder  that  this  uncultured,  un- 
couth, horny-handed  person  of  an  otherwise  unknown 
community  has  had  shipped  to  his  shop  the  finest 
racing  horses  in  the  country. 

The  psychological  relation  of  ideals  and  conduct  is 
plainly  shown  in  this,  that  whether  a  man  behaves 
according  to  his  best  or  according  to  his  worst,  he 
must  have  an  ideal  standard  of  behavior.  Biography 
contributes  largely  to  such  a  standard.  Let  the  boy 
read  over  and  over  again  the  story  of  Washington,  of 
Franklin,  of  Livingstone,  of  Savonarola,  of  Jesus  of 
Nazareth,  and  he  will  have  ideal  standards  of  conduct 
that  will  bring  him  to  his  best.  On  the  other  hand,  let 
the  boy  delve  into  the  vile  stuff  that  is  gotten  out  by  the 
ton  daily  in  our  country,  in  which  is  depicted  the  low, 
the  mean  and  the  groveling,  and  the  force  of  gravity  in 
his  life  will  become  such  that  not  all  the  other  forces 
combined  can  save  him  from  the  downward  road. 

Not  only  is  an  ideal  standard  of  conduct  necessary 


IDEALS   AND   CONDUCT  A9 

but  an  ideal  road  to  travel  in  realizing  this  standard 
is  necessary.  In  general  outline,  if  not  indeed  in 
detail,  the  road  must  be  seen  stretching  on  ahead  of 
the  young  person  who  is  to  travel  it.  But  the  ma- 
terials that  go  to  make  up  the  ideals  are  the  materials 
that  have  been  experienced.  The  traveler  must 
furthermore  idealize  himself  as  now  traveling  the 
road.  The  significance  of  this  is  shown  in  the  fact 
that  one  who  is  physically  incapacitated  is  unable  to 
will  to  undertake  the  task.  The  armless  student  who 
sits  on  the  bleachers  watching  his  team  go  down  to 
defeat  in  baseball  has  his  standard  of  victory  and 
knows  the  road  the  other  nine  men  must  travel  to 
attain  this  standard,  but  he  is  unable  to  will  to  travel 
the  road  himself.  He  can  only  wish  that  he  had 
arms  that  he  might  will  to  help  in  the  contest.  The 
student  who  has  a  hopelessly  falsetto  voice,  who  is 
intensely  loyal  to  his  college,  who  would  pay  any 
price  that  his  institution  might  win  in  the  oratorical 
contest  —  can  only  wish  that  he  had  a  good  speak- 
ing voice  that  he  might  will  to  do  so.  We  see  here 
how  very  closely  related  are  human  wealth,  the  abun- 
dant life,  ideals  and  conduct.  Without  ideals  there 
can  be  no  effective  conduct.  Without  the  abundant 
life  whereby  one  may  will  there  can  be  no  efficient 
conduct,  for  all  conduct  is  objective  willing,  the  last 
end  of  will  being  to  get  it  done.  The  great  concern 
then  is,  that  from  early  childhood  the  material  for 
worthy  ideals  of  conduct  and  the  opportunity  for  real- 
izing these  ideals,  should  be  at  the  disposal  of  all  our 
children. 


CHAPTER  IX 
MODELS  AND   IDEALS 

I  HOPE  that  in  the  preceding  chapter  I  have  made 
clear  the  close  relationship  that  exists  between  ideals 
and  conduct.  I  desire  to  show  in  this  chapter  that 
the  relation  existing  between  ideals  and  models  is 
just  as  close  and  important.  Conduct,  as  has  been 
seen,  depends  directly  upon  ideals.  No  less  do  ideals 
depend  directly  upon  models.  Ideals  are  the  subjec- 
tive answer  to  models,  as  the  objective  suggestion. 

In  a  little  town  which  I  visited  recently,  the  hotel 
proprietor  was  stampeded  because  of  the  large  num- 
ber of  guests  which  applied  for  lodging.  He  was  pre- 
pared to  take  care  of  three  and  would  accommodate 
the  entire  company  of  five  if  they  would  "double  up." 
In  the  course  of  the  conversation  he  said  that  he 
"reckoned  his  town  was  one  of  the  best  towns  in  the 
country."  He  also  gave  us  the  valuable  and  inter- 
esting information  that  he  had  been  born  in  that 
community  sixty  years  ago  and  that  he  had  traveled 
to  the  extreme  boundaries  of  the  county,  clinching 
his  view  that  his  town  was  one  of  the  most  prosper- 
ous in  the  country  with  the  very  meaningful  remark 
that  he  did  not  know  a  town  that  had  so  much  room 
around  it.    His  idea  of  a  town  and  of  a  public  hostelry 

50 


MODELS   AND   IDEALS  51 

was  the  exact  counterpart  of  the  models  to  which  he 
had  been  exposed  all  his  life. 

The  ideal  of  womanhood  that  the  girls  of  the 
Chinese  empire  have  is  a  life  of  drudgery  and  burden- 
bearing.  It  cannot  be  otherwise  with  the  models 
that  they  have  before  their  eyes  from  birth  day 
to  death  day.  In  the  city  of  Hongkong  Chinese 
women  may  be  seen  carrying  the  building  materials 
up  the  winding  paths  for  hundreds  of  palatial  resi- 
dences on  the  mountain  tops.  A  few  years  ago  I 
was  told  that  in  the  city  of  Hongkong  there  were 
but  six  horses,  and  these  were  race  horses.  The 
owners  would  not  think  of  working  these  fine  animals 
because  this  heavy,  coarse,  manual  labor  could  be 
accompHshed  by  the  Chinese  women. 

My  young,  inexperienced,  vulgar  country  acquaint- 
ance who  inherited  a  httle  property  expressed  the 
fear  that  he  would  be  ruined  by  his  fortune.  His 
father  had  been  the  owner  of  one  of  the  largest  farms 
in  the  township.  Many  a  young  man  has  transacted 
more  business  in  a  day  than  this  bumpkin's  entire 
inheritance  represented,  without  having  felt  that  he 
was  a  captain  of  industry.  The  young  farmer  had 
his  ideals  of  wealth  and  business  determined  by  the 
models  that  had  been  before  him.  His  ideal  of  a 
fortune  was  the  .ownership  of  a  few  acres. 

A  certain  famous  zoologist  spent  months  traversing 
southern  streams  to  find  the  missing  connection  be- 
tween two  species  of  fish.  When  he  saw  a  fish  that 
seemed  to  meet  the  demand  he  went  into  the  water, 
clothes  and  all,  after  it,  and  was  rewarded  for  the 


52  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

months  of  labor  he  had  spent  in  searching  for  this 
specimen.  He  prepared  it  with  his  usual  care,  and 
that  it  might  be  preserved,  put  it  into  his  alcohol 
jar.  The  native  who  had  accompanied  him  day  after 
day  and  month  after  month  looked  on  in  amaze- 
ment. When  he  saw  the  specimen  go  into  the 
alcohol  jar  he  remarked,  "Why,  man,  that  is  good  to 
eat!"  It  had  never  occurred  to  him  that  there  was 
a  higher  use  to  which  a  single  fish  could  be  put  than 
that  of  food,  and  his  ideal  of  the  use  of  the  fish  had 
been  determined  entirely  by  the  models  of  use  that 
had  been  before  him  all  his  hfe. 

The  greatest  ideals  that  have  been  born,  and  the 
highest  standards  that  have  been  erected  in  America 
within  the  last  hundred  years,  have  been  in  the  col- 
leges and  universities.  And  many  of  the  smallest 
ideals  and  the  narrowest  convictions  that  have  been 
ground  into  our  people  within  the  last  hundred  years 
have  been  in  some  of  the  colleges  and  universities  of 
our  country.  I  can  think  of  nothing  that  is  so  con- 
ducive to  small  ideas  and  low  ideals  as  an  educational 
institution  handicapped  for  resources,  with  indiffer- 
ently trained  teachers  who  beheve  in  salvation  by 
elimination,  who  are  good  because  they  are  going  to 
die  and  not  because  they  are  going  to  live.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  world,  in  the  slums  of  a  great  city  or 
in  the  isolation  of  remote  country  life,  that  is  so  well 
calculated  to  result  in  narrowness,  stupidity  and  gen- 
eral inefficiency  as  such  models  of  professed  leadership. 

When  man  has  as  his  ideal  of  service  "Git  a  plenty 
while   you're   a-gittin,"  everything  about  him  may 


MODELS   AND   IDEALS  53 

prosper.  Nothing  within  him  prospers.  Everything 
he  controls  prospers,  except  himself.  Because  of  the 
prosperity  of  his  taxable  property  he  serves  as  a 
model  for  many  of  the  boys  of  his  community.  The 
result  is  that  following  upon  such  a  model  as  an 
ideal,  the  undertakings  of  the  boys  of  that  com- 
munity, within  the  course  of  a  comparatively  few 
years,  may  be  prosperous,  but  it  will  be  a  prosperity 
bought  at  the  fearful  price  of  human  hfe.  On  the 
other  hand,  whenever  a  man  has  as  his  ideal  the 
bigness  of  human  life  and  couples  with  that  the  will- 
ingness, the  eagerness  to  help  raise  it,  he  makes  a 
mighty  contribution  to  the  human  wealth  of  the 
world.  These  are  the  models  that  result  in  the  ideals 
which  alone  can  save  the  world.  Every  century, 
every  generation  must  have  a  few  people  who  are 
willing  to  make  themselves  the  fittest  to  live  so  that 
they  may  be  worthy  to  die,  and  those  who  are  wilUng 
to  invest  all  that  they  are  and  all  that  they  have  to 
the  general  uplift  of  humankind.  The  man  who  is 
doing  this  in  Manila  is  elevating  the  general  level 
of  humankind  the  world  around.  The  man  who  is 
doing  this  in  Greenland  is  doing  it  no  less. 

Conduct  depends  upon  ideals,  but  I  hope  that  it 
is  coming  to  be  clear  to  the  reader  that  no  less  do 
models  determine  almost  entirely,  in  the  lives  of  most 
people,  the  ideals  that  they  have.  A  boy  can  hardly 
escape  from  worshiping  the  god  of  gold  if  his  neigh- 
bors are  bent  only  upon  money-making  and  are  suc- 
cessful in  their  efforts.  A  young  person  can  hardly 
escape  from  worshiping  the  god  of  learning,  striving 


54  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR   THE   TEACHER 

after  the  ideal  of  knowledge,  if  his  parents  and 
his  neighbors  are  devoting  their  hves  to  successful 
research  and  study.  With  the  greatest  difficulty 
does  one  turn  aside  to  the  realization  of  large  things 
in  himself  and  in  others  who  has  had  before  him  con- 
stantly from  childhood  those  who  have  held  positions 
of  honor  and  responsibility,  and  who  continue  to  be 
appointed  or  elected  to  such  positions.  The  model 
that  is  set  before  the  sons  of  public  men,  especially  if 
those  public  men  are  successful,  is  such  as  to  estab- 
lish in  the  heart  and  mind  of  the  son  the  ideal,  the 
desire,  the  longing  for  fame  and  notoriety,  and  some- 
times, let  us  hope,  a  Ufe  of  usefulness  in  this  same 
field.  Now  we  have  passed  the  era  of  stupidity,  when 
we  look  with  suspicion  upon  the  one  who  succeeds  in 
his  financial  career,  in  the  career  of  a  scholar  or  in  the 
profession  even  of  clean  politics,  but  we  have  not  yet 
entered  the  era  in  which  we  realize  as  we  should  that 
these  are  not  comprehensive  ideals  and  so  cannot  be 
comprehensive,  satisfactory  models  for  our  people. 
They  are  not  ends,  they  are  means,  and  only  par- 
tial means;  and  well  will  it  be  for  our  country  and 
for  the  world  when  our  sons  and  our  daughters  may 
look  in  whatever  direction  they  will,  in  history,  in 
literature,  in  the  business  world,  in  the  school,  in  the 
church,  in  the  state,  and  find  models  of  fine  living, 
stirring  models  of  the  abundant  life.  How  large  will 
be  the  new  era  when  we  have  grown  men  in  the  pul- 
pits, litdng  men  at  the  teachers'  desks,  vigorous,  clean- 
lived  men  in  our  places  of  business,  God-fearing  men, 
with  good  digestions,  absolutely  free  from  selfish  mo- 


MODELS   AND   IDEALS  65 

tives,  in  our  places  of  public  trust.  With  a  decade 
of  such  models  who  can  venture  to  guess  the  trans- 
formation that  would  be  made  in  the  ideals  of  our 
sons  and  daughters  in  all  their  life  reactions?  The 
most  important  thing  before  an  institution,  be  it 
the  home,  the  school,  the  church  or  the  state,  is 
the  living  model  of  the  abundant  life.  The  respon- 
sibility of  being  such  a  model  should  weigh  so  heavily 
upon  every  man  and  woman  who  holds  a  place,  even 
of  smallest  leadership,  that  he  can  have  no  peace  until 
he  has  attained  the  abundant  life  to  the  highest 
degree  possible  to  himself. 


CHAPTER  X 
THE  PSYCHOLOGY  OF  AN  ABIDING  IDEAL 

Not  every  one  who  appreciates  the  transforming 
effect  of  ideals  upon  hfe  reahzes  how  great  the  demand 
is  for  steadfastness  of  purpose.  Going  in  a  straight 
line  is  seldom  found  in  the  performances  of  a  human 
being,  but  it  is  the  thing  greatly  to  be  desired  on  the 
part  of  every  one  who  aspires  to  meet  large  tasks  and 
accomplish  them  in  a  satisfactory  manner.  So  it  is 
important  that  one  should  have  what  I  am  pleased  to 
call  here  the  abiding  ideal.  No  one  who  prospers  can 
fail  to  have  many  and  changing  ideals  through  a  long, 
successful  lifetime.  Such  a  person  has  many  changes 
and  unique  and  peculiar  upheavals  in  his  hfe,  and 
these  are  marked  by  new  motives  and  new  powers. 
Childhood  has  its  humors  and  its  caprices,  its  ever" 
changing  desires  and  hungerings  and  thirstings. 
Youth  has  its  hopes,  aspirations  and  ideals  of  undis- 
covered regions  and  unaccomplished  tasks.  Young 
manhood  has  its  visions,  swears  allegiance  to  ideals  of 
strength,  valor  and  courage.  Mature  hfe  has  its 
visions  and  sometimes  its  dreams  of  the  fullness  of 
hfe  and  unselfish  service.  Not  less  do  conditions 
change  than  does  the  individual  himself.  The  world 
moves.     New  opportunities  are  continually  stretch- 

56 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   AN   ABIDING   IDEAL  57 

ing  before  the  one  who  has  his  eyes  developed  to  see 
them.  New  problems  arise  on  every  hand.  The 
greatest  thing  the  world  has  to  present  to  the  child 
has  become  of  second-rate  importance  when  he  at- 
tains the  years  of  youth.  The  greatest  cry  of  the 
people  that  the  youth  hears  is  lost  and  forgotten 
during  the  years  that  he  is  pressing  into  young  man- 
hood. So  rapidly  does  the  world  move,  so  strenuous 
is  modern  life,  so  complex  and  so  rapidly  changing 
are  the  institutions  of  men,  that  the  largest  call  that 
comes  in  the  years  of  young  manhood  is  a  faint 
whisper  as  compared  with  the  tremendous  call  that 
comes  from  the  complicated,  hustUng  world  to  this 
same  man  when  he  has  attained  the  years  of  maturity. 
Young  men  to-day  who  are  willing  to  serve  have  a 
thousand  battles  to  wage  in  the  modern  city  which 
were  undreamed  of  and  unguessed  by  their  fore- 
fathers. The  demand,  for  example,  for  sanitary  engi- 
neers in  the  great  cities  of  our  country  and  of  the 
world  cannot  be  met  by  young  men  who  are  prepared 
to  do  the  work.  The  person  who  takes  the  first  steps 
on  the  road  of  Ufe,  through  childhood  into  youth, 
young  manhood  and  mature  hfe,  with  ever-changing 
ideals  from  within  and  ever-changing  demands  from 
without,  cannot  be  certain  that  he  will  go  forward  in 
the  straight  line  of  efficiency,  cannot  be  sure  which  of 
these  ideals  is  a  worthy  one  and  which  of  these  de- 
mands is  a  real  one.  There  must  be  an  over-ideal,  if 
you  please.  There  must  be  a  great  purpose  in  life 
compared  to  which  these  ever-changing,  legitimate 
ideals  and  demands  are  but  as  corollaries. 


58  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

The  immortal  Lincoln  is  beloved  as  no  other  presi- 
dent of  our  country  has  been.  He  was  probably  the 
most  gentle,  unique,  courageous,  man-loving.  God- 
fearing, God-directed,  self-made  character  that  this 
country  has  ever  produced.  The  blow  that  he  de- 
livered for  the  state  and  humankind  is  one  whose 
effects  are  now  only  beginning  to  be  felt;  and  time 
will  serve  only  to  emphasize  and  put  upon  his  work  a 
truthful  interpretation.  He  had  the  highest  and  most 
lofty  ideals  that  a  president  of  his  day  could  enter- 
tain. They  were  ideals  that  pertained  to  national 
affairs.  But  the  world  moves,  and  time  has  wrought 
changes  such  as  our  martyred  president  could  not 
have  imagined.  Life  is  becoming  complex  at  a  fear- 
ful rate.  The  problems  that  demanded  high  ideals  on 
the  part  of  President  Lincoln  have  been  solved.  New 
problems  have  arisen.  The  largest  questions  that 
confronted  President  Roosevelt  were  questions  of  in- 
ternational relationships.  He  did  his  work  well.  He 
was  a  man  of  ideals  and  a  man  who  had  the  abihty 
to  reahze  upon  them.  But  the  thing  that  I  am 
insisting  upon  here  is  that  Mr.  Lincoln  had  his  set  of 
ideals  for  his  time  merely  as  corollaries  to  the  abiding 
ideal,  to  the  over-ideal  of  service,  and  that  Mr. 
Roosevelt  hkewise  had  his  set  of  ideals  always  in 
submission  to  this  same  abiding  ideal. 

Our  grandfathers  and  grandmothers  had  their  ideals 
of  home  life  —  beautiful  and  beneficent.  No  stronger 
influence  has  ever  gone  into  the  life  of  the  child  than 
that  which  was  generated  about  the  family  table 
with  the  lamp  in  the  center,  with  father,  mother  and 


THE   PSYCHOLOGY   OF   AN   ABIDING   IDEAL  59 

the  children  gathered  about  it  during  long  winter 
evenings.  Our  scientists,  bent  upon  improvement, 
have  put  an  end  to  all  that.  The  beauty  of  fam- 
ily intercourse  has  been  exchanged  for  the  modern 
inconveniences.  Then,  about  a  common  center,  by 
the  one  stove  or  open  fireplace  the  evenings  were 
spent,  in  the  expression  of  family  hopes,  joys  and 
sorrows.  But  the  furnace  has  come  and  the  ten-room 
house  is  uniformly  heated;  the  electric  light  has  come 
and  the  same  house  is  uniformly  lighted;  each  child 
has  his  own  room,  and  the  members  of  the  family  say 
good  night  to  one  another  on  leaving  the  dinner 
table.  What  held  the  family  together  in  the  early 
days?  Not  a  better  conception  of  life,  but  the  over- 
ideal  of  love  and  duty  performed  toward  one  another. 
What  holds  the  family  together  to-day?  Exactly  the 
same  abiding  ideal.  Without  it  family  Ufe  would  be 
a  misnomer.  This  abiding  ideal  of  love,  of  service,  in 
whatever  chme,  under  whatever  conditions,  ramifies  to 
the  remotest  rooms  even  of  a  castle.  The  child  is  not 
saved  to  the  best  with  which  he  was  endowed  be- 
cause of  any  procession  of  high  ideals  alone,  but 
because  held  up  to  him  and  lived  before  him,  under 
all  the  vicissitudes  of  fortune,  is  the  over-ideal  of  the 
abundant  life,  of  worthy  manhood. 

During  my  boyhood  days  the  country  boy  would 
have  been  hopelessly  shiftless  and  worthless  if  he  had 
rambled  about  his  township  so  as  to  be  familiar  with 
the  people  who  lived  on  the  borders  of  it.  But  with 
our  turnpikes,  automobiles  and  electric  railways,  the 
boy  to-day  would  be  hopelessly  stupid  if  his  township 


60  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

or  even  his  county  were  not  his  community.  The 
world  moves.  One's  ideals  shift,  the  geography  of 
life's  situations  changes  in  relief,  contour  and  prod- 
ucts. The  only  hope  for  the  boy  to-day  whose  com- 
munity is  the  county  is  the  hope  of  the  boy  twenty 
years  ago  whose  community  was  his  school  district,  — 
the  possession  of  an  abiding  ideal.  The  principle 
strongly  enforced  by  an  explicit  rule  twenty  years  ago 
would  be  violated  by  the  application  of  the  same  rule 
to-day.  The  friends  to  whom  we  were  anchored  in 
childhood  and  youth  are  gone,  or  else  they  cannot  or 
will  not  understand.  The  interests  to  which  we  were 
anchored  are  gone.  Our  ideals  have  varied  from 
childhood  through  life.  How  shall  we  be  saved  from 
drifting?  What  can  prevent  human  life  from  being 
wafted  hither  and  thither,  being  subject  to  continual 
inner  transformations  and  outer  stimulations? 

There  is  but  one  hope,  and  it  is  found  in  the  abid- 
ing ideal,  "Seek  ye  first  the  kingdom  of  God."  I 
will  not  stop  here  to  define  what  that  is.  The  king- 
dom of  God  is  as  meaningful  to  the  individual  as  the 
individual  himself  is  full  of  meaning.  Seek  ye  first 
the  kingdom  and  the  other  things  will  be  added. 
The  changes,  internal  and  external,  are  the  shadows. 
The  hope  of  the  consistent,  efficient  life  is  found  in 
the  possession  of  an  ideal  that  changeth  not. 


CHAPTER  XI 
THE   SCHOOL   AND  IDEALS 

In  former  chapters  I  have  endeavored  to  show  how 
prominent  and  important  are  ideals  in  the  forming  of 
efl&cient  character.  I  wish  in  this  chapter  to  show 
how  large  a  share  the  school  has  in  determining  what 
these  ideals  shall  be  and  therefore  how  large  the  re-, 
sponsibility  is  which  rests  upon  the  school  in  this 
matter.  The  home  is  the  foundation  of  society,  and 
if  it  fails  in  its  basic  work  nothing  can  compensate  for 
this  failure.  But  no  other  institution  has  the  oppor- 
tunity that  the  school  possesses  for  raising  up  before 
the  children  worthy  ideals  of  life  and  of  character; 
and  no  other  institution  offers  as  a  rule  such  ideal 
conditions  under  which  the  children  may  realize  upon 
their  ideals,  for  there  is  a  degree  of  organization  and 
of  systematic  procedure  in  even  the  poorest  schools. 

Every  one  who  reads  this  will  remember  the  ideals 
that  were  instilled  into  his  life  during  his  school 
days.  It  was  in  the  reading  class,  as  a  boy,  that  I 
had  impressed  upon  me  the  fine  ideal  of  faithfulness 
in  the  story  of  Peter  Lenox  and  the  turnip  patch,  and 
in  the  story  of  Casablanca.  From  the  days  of  those 
reading  lessons  to  the  present  time  it  would  have 
been  a  little  more  difficult  for  me  to  have  been  un- 

61 


62  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

faithful  to  a  task  than  it  would  have  been  if  I  had  not 
been  inspired  by  those  examples  of  faithfulness.  It 
was  here  also  that  I  got  my  first  ideals  of  courage,  to 
do  one's  duty  under  all  circumstances.  The  story  of 
the  English  lad  who  declined  to  open  the  gate  that 
the  Duke  of  Wellington  and  his  companions  might 
pass  through  a  cultivated  field  on  a  hunting  trip 
brought  me  to  my  feet.  And  when  the  boy  waved 
his  hat  and  cried,  "Hooray!  hooray!  I  have  done 
what  Napoleon  could  not  do;  I  have  kept  back  the 
Duke  of  Wellington!"  a  permanent  mark  was  made 
upon  my  boyish  life.  From  that  day  to  this  it  would 
have  been  more  difficult  to  have  scared  or  stampeded 
me  into  an  act  of  cowardice  than  before  that  time. 
History  offers  large  opportunities  for  instilling  ideals 
of  patriotism  and  loyalty.  There  is  nothing  better 
calculated  to  stir  a  young  American  to  the  emotion  of 
patriotism  and  loyalty  than  the  recital  of  the  suffer- 
ings and  endurance  of  the  American  Revolutionary 
women,  whose  heroism  yet  remains  to  be  sung  by 
generations  unborn.  I  shall  never  forget  the  thrill  of 
a  new-born  patriotism  that  I  experienced  as  I  first 
read  that  at  the  close  of  the  American  Revolutionary 
War  Washington  might  have  been  crowned  king,  but 
that  he  declined  the  crown.  I  had  followed  his 
career  with  great  care  and  interest  from  the  days 
when  he  was  a  young  surveyor,  through  the  French 
and  Indian  War,  through  the  Revolutionary  War,  and 
the  struggle  afterward  for  a  satisfactory  scheme  of 
government.  I  had  begun  to  realize  that  he  exer- 
cised an  influence  over  the  people  which  would  claim 


THE    SCHOOL   AND   IDEALS  63 

their  allegiance  and  their  following  wherever  he 
might  choose  to  go.  And  this  one  act  of  his  brought 
me  at  once  to  a  higher  plane  of  patriotism  and  loy- 
alty, a  plane  which  I  fear  I  might  not  have  attained 
had  it  not  been  that  in  the  name  of  patriotism 
Washington,  after  he  had  gained  all,  laid  it  all  down. 
There  must  be  a  finer  and  truer  patriotism  and  loyalty 
in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  our  young  people  when 
they  read  of  the  services  of  President  J.  Q.  Adams; 
how,  after  he  had  been  elevated  to  the  position  of 
highest  honor  and  responsibility  in  the  gift  of  the 
American  people,  he  was  willing,  for  the  sake  of  ser- 
vice to  his  country,  to  accept  a  less  conspicuous  post 
and  to  represent  his  home  district  for  a  number  of 
years  in  the  national  House  of  Representatives. 
There  is  hardly  a  lesson  in  history  that  does  not  lend 
itself  to  high  ideals  of  life  and  conduct  with  especial 
reference,  of  course,  to  one's  obligation  to  the  insti- 
tutions in  the  midst  of  which  he  lives. 

But  no  other  department  of  school  work  offers  such 
fine  and  numerous  opportunities  for  impressing  the 
young  with  high  ideals  as  the  department  of  liter- 
ature. For  an  ideal  of  clean,  unbiased,  absolute 
justice,  where  the  wheel  of  life  makes  a  complete 
turn,  give  the  student  ''King  Lear."  And  when  you 
wish  your  student  to  reaUze  that  a  man  must  reap 
whatever  he  sows,  which  is  itself  a  lesson  in  justice, 
let  him  read  "Hamlet."  The  critics  may  never  be 
able  to  answer  the  question.  Was  Hamlet  mad?  but 
there  is  no  question  in  the  mind  of  any  one  who  reads, 
that  if  Hamlet  was  not  mad  he  was  on  the  verge  of 


64  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS   FOR  THE   TEACHER 

madness.  Madness  is  the  inevitable  outcome  of  such 
an  experience.  The  story  of  ideals  in  the  Hterary 
world  is  so  well  known  that  it  need  not  be  retold 
here.  It  serves,  however,  to  good  purpose  in  empha- 
sizing the  close  relationship  between  the  school  and 
ideals,  and  the  responsibility  of  the  school  in  determi- 
ning the  ideals  of  the  students. 

In  art  the  school  offers  an  opportunity  for  develop- 
ment at  comparatively  small  expense.  Copies  of  the 
finest  works  of  art  can  be  placed  in  the  halls  and  on 
the  walls  of  the  schoolroom  and  all  unconsciously  to 
the  student  he  will  gain  true  artistic  ideals.  The  ugly 
and  the  grotesque  will  in  the  course  of  time  become 
painful  to  him  if  he  has  been  living  in  the  presence  of 
fine  art.  He  will  no  longer  measure  the  value  and 
beauty  of  a  picture  by  the  amount  of  paint  or  by  the 
square  yard. 

But,  after  all,  the  greatest  chance  that  the  school 
offers  for  worthy  ideals  in  the  lives  of  young  people  is 
that  which  comes  through  personal,  daily  contact 
with  the  teacher.  No  historic  story,  no  literary 
character,  no  work  of  art,  nor  all  of  these  combined,  in 
the  long  run  make  for  or  against  the  student's  best 
development  so  completely  and  permanently  as  can 
the  life  of  the  teacher  in  a  comparatively  short  time. 
The  best  cure  for  curvature  of  the  spine  and  round 
shoulders  is  a  young  teacher  who  comes  into  the  com- 
munity with  broad  shoulders,  high  head  and  elastic 
step,  capable  of  feats  of  strength  and  endurance. 
The  doctors  have  their  place,  but  the  presence  of 
such  a  teacher  in  a  community  for  one  year  will  do 


THE   SCHOOL   AND   IDEALS  66 

more  to  make  the  physical  Ufe  straight  and  strong  than 
all  the  bandages  and  splints  and  shoulder  braces  in  the 
doctors'  offices.  Are  the  children  slovenly,  untidy, 
unwashed?  Let  a  healthy,  clean-minded,  efficient 
young  man  or  woman  come  before  these  children  for 
one  year  as  teacher,  and  the  dispenser  of  toothbrushes 
and  soap  will  surely  find  his  business  increasing. 
The  vast  majority  of  people,  especially  of  young 
people,  speak  the  truth,  but  also  the  vast  majority  of 
them  do  not  speak  the  complete  truth.  Let  a  young 
man  or  woman  come  into  the  community  to  teach 
school  who  has  ideals  of  truthfulness,  who  tells  the 
truth,  the  complete  truth,  who  tells  it  freely,  without 
any  hesitation  whatever,  and  who  lives  it  as  freely 
and  fully  as  he  speaks  it;  ideals  of  truth  will  be  born 
into  the  lives  of  the  young  people  which  could  come 
to  them  in  no  other  way. 

Let  this  young  teacher  be  a  master  of  the  subjects 
that  he  teaches  and  let  him  be  skillful  in  the  presen- 
tation of  them,  and  the  children  will  get  an  insight 
into  the  meaning  of  efficiency  and  will  have  ideals  of 
mastery  such  as  they  have  not  had  and  under  other 
conditions  could  not  have  had.  As  the  result  of  the 
coming  of  this  strong,  complete,  truthful,  efficient 
young  person  into  the  community,  the  children  and 
their  parents  will  come  to  have  an  ideal  of  the  abun- 
dant life  which  after  all  is  the  end  of  living.  We 
should  not,  however,  forget  that  there  are  five  insti- 
tutions of  civilization,  five  great  organized  agencies  of 
civilized  life,  and  that  the  school  is  only  one  of  these. 
We  will  therefore  not  hold  the  school  responsible  for 


66  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR  THE   TEACHER 

all  the  shortcomings  and  misdemeanors  of  society,  but 
we  will  hold  the  school  responsible  for  placing  and 
holding  before  the  children  worthy  ideals  of  conduct 
and  of  life,  and  of  offering  to  the  children  a  program 
for  reaUzing  these  ideals. 


CHAPTER  XII 
THE  ROOTS  OF  CHARACTER 

Every  one  has  observed  that  strength  of  character 
is  not  always  proportionate  to  the  knowledge  which 
one  possesses;  neither  is  it  always  proportionate  to 
the  fine  emotional  life  of  the  individual.  I  wish 
in  this  chapter  to  determine  as  nearly  as  possible  in 
what  soil  character  has  its  roots ;  and  I  mean  of  course 
here,  as  elsewhere,  by  character  the  ability  to  stand 
where  one  should  stand  and  to  do  as  one  should  do; 
I  mean  efficiency;  I  mean  that  positive  characteristic 
of  the  individual  which  makes  him  a  stable  and  valua- 
ble factor  in  society;  I  mean  the  sum  total  of  one's 
capitalization. 

The  road  that  leads  to  this  kind  of  character  has  in 
it  three  stages.  The  first  is  the  stage  of  unconscious 
inefficiency.  Here  the  individual  is  inefficient  but  does 
not  care  because  he  does  not  know.  The  second  is  the 
stage  of  conscious  inefficiency.  This  is  the  learning 
stage,  the  stage  of  going  forward,  of  capitalizing  one's 
self.  Here  the  individual  is  inefficient  and  is  conscious 
of  it  and  is  putting  forth  more  or  less  effort  to  over- 
come it.  The  third  is  the  stage  of  unconscious  effi- 
ciency. It  is  the  stage  in  which  the  individual  does  his 
work  as  well  as  it  can  be  done  without  attending  closely 

67 


68  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

to  all  the  details.  It  has  become  a  matter  of  habit  with 
him,  habit  in  the  sense  in  which  the  Duke  of  Welling- 
ton meant  it  when  he  said,  "Habit  is  second  nature. 
Habit  is  ten  times  nature!" 

These  three  stages  of  development  may  be  illus- 
trated in  ways  familiar  to  all.  In  the  first  few  weeks 
or  months  of  its  life  the  child  is  inefficient  as  a  talker. 
It  does  not  talk  and  does  not  try  to  talk.  It  is,  so 
far  as  any  one  knows  or  can  guess,  entirely  uncon- 
scious of  its  deficiency.  The  needed  stimulations 
have  not  been  experienced  fully  enough  to  arouse  the 
child  to  a  consciousness  of  its  deficiency  and  its  needs. 
It  is  in  what  we  have  called  the  stage  of  unconscious 
inefficiency.  But  in  the  course  of  time,  through  the 
suggestions  that  come  to  it  hourly  from  its  parents 
and  brothers  and  sisters,  it  begins  to  imitate  them, 
and  from  that  time  until  it  has  learned  to  speak  con- 
nected sentences  and  from  then  on  through  its  school 
work,  in  language,  grammar,  composition,  and  so  on, 
it  is  living  in  the  stage  of  conscious  inefficiency.  It 
does  not  use  the  language  so  forcefully  and  elegantly 
as  it  desires  to  and  it  is  conscious  of  this  fact;  it  is 
putting  forth  a  conscious  effort  to  gain  the  skill  which 
it  does  not  possess.  This  is  what  I  call  the  stage  of 
conscious  inefficiency.  But  there  will  come  a  time,  to 
him  who  persists  in  his  language  development  and 
skill,  when  he  will  no  longer  need  to  think  of  the  nomi- 
native or  objective  forms,  but  as  naturally  as  he 
breathes  will  these  forms  come  when  he  is  expressing 
himself.  He  can  now  devote  all  of  his  mental  and 
physical  energy  to  the  development  of  the  thought 


THE   ROOTS   OF   CHARACTER  69 

which  he  wishes  to  express  and,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  language  will  flow  along  in  fine  form.  He  has 
become  the  efficient  user  of  the  language,  but  not 
until  the  day  of  conscious  thought  on  the  language 
forms  is  past.  It  is  well  for  the  one  who  wishes  to 
become  an  effective  public  speaker  to  study  the  sub- 
jects of  poise,  of  gesture,  of  pronunciation,  and  so  on, 
but  no  one  is  ever  at  his  best  in  public  speaking  who  is 
obliged  at  the  time  to  give  any  of  his  thought  or  con- 
cern to  these  things.  There  was  a  time  when  it  was 
important  to  give  these  things  thought,  to  keep  them 
in  the  center  of  conscious  attention,  but  that  is  not 
the  day  of  finished  public  performance. 

The  three  stages  on  the  road  to  efficient  character 
may  be  illustrated  in  learning  to  play  the  piano. 
Through  the  first  few  months  and  years  of  the  child's 
life  it  is  inefficient  as  a  pianist,  but  is  not  at  all 
concerned  about  the  deficiency  because  it  is  in  the 
stage  of  unconscious  inefficiency.  The  piano  is  pur- 
chased, the  teacher  employed,  the  lesson  assigned,  and 
the  practice  begins.  From  this  time  forth,  for  years, 
the  energetic,  persistent  student  of  the  piano  is  in  the 
stage  of  conscious  inefficiency.  But  if  he  combines 
native  ability  with  persistence,  the  time  will  come 
when  it  will  be  no  longer  necessary  for  him  to  keep 
his  eyes  upon  the  music,  the  keyboard,  or  his  hands, 
but  he  will  be  able  to  lose  himself  in  the  emotion  he  is 
trying  to  express,  and  his  hands,  so  to  speak,  will  be 
turning  out  the  music.  He  who  has  attained  this 
skill  has  arrived  at  the  stage  of  unconscious  efficiency. 

The  simple  skills  of  walking,  dressing,  of  appro- 


70  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

priate  adjustments  in  polite  society  are  all  illustra- 
tions of  these  three  stages  on  the  road  to  strength  of 
character.  Now  if  one  is  never  at  his  best,  never 
skillful  in  the  conscious  stage,  but  only  in  the  uncon- 
scious stage,  the  questions  which  arise  are  these:  Where 
are  the  roots  of  efficient  character?  What  is  the  soil 
into  which  runs  the  taproot  of  this  thing?  I  wish  by 
a  few  simple  illustrations  to  throw  some  light  upon 
this  subject.  My  friend,  a  university  president,  has 
said  in  my  hearing  repeatedly  that  he  would  not  be 
intoxicated  in  public  for  any  amount  of  money.  He 
might  have  meant  that  he  would  not  set  going  in  his 
life  the  tendency  toward  this  thing,  or  the  appetite 
which  he  might  not  be  able  to  control,  but  he  did  not 
mean  this.  He  meant  that  he  would  not  be  intoxi- 
cated in  public,  and  by  this  he  meant  that  there  is  a 
profounder  and  broader,  a  more  comprehensive  and 
more  truthful  life  than  the  life  which  is  lived  out  in 
one's  conscious  moments;  that  when  the  conscious 
senses  which  serve  as  chaperons  and  guards  of  one's 
life  are  off  duty  the  real  life  manifests  itself;  and  that 
although  his  life  had  been  clean  and  honorable 
throughout,  during  his  boyhood  days  there  had  been 
made  through  the  eye  and  the  ear  certain  impressions, 
that  there  had  been  certain  thoughts  in  the  past 
which,  when  his  life  should  express  itself  freely  with 
the  guards  off  duty,  he  did  not  care  to  have  made 
public.  In  the  statement  that  he  would  not  be 
intoxicated  in  public  for  any  amount  of  money  this 
wise  man  was  expressing  in  his  own  way  how  funda- 
mental is  the   substratum  of  life  in  the   making  or 


THE   ROOTS   OF   CHARACTER  71 

the   unmaking   of   the   permanent   character   of   the 
individual. 

Hypnotism  helps  us  here.  The  hypnotic  subject 
will  act  upon  the  suggestion  of  the  hypnotist;  and 
when  he  is  brought  out  of  the  hypnotic  state  he  will 
not  remember  his  performance  while  in  it.  Suppose 
while  the  subject  is  under  the  influence  of  hypnotism 
the  hypnotist  should  make  a  test  in  the  form  of  a 
suggestion,  like  this:  ''To-morrow  afternoon  at  three 
o'clock,  wherever  you  are,  you  must  wave  your  hat  in 
the  air  and  yell  for  Andrew  Jackson."  Strange  things 
will  then  follow.  The  subject  will  be  brought  out  of 
the  hypnotic  state  and  will  be  unable  to  remember 
anything  that  he  did  while  under  its  influence. 
Until  three  o'clock  the  next  afternoon  he  will  live 
his  normal,  conscious  life  entirely  unaware  that  a 
suggestion  is  lurking  somewhere  in  the  subsoil  of  his 
being,  but  it  is  there,  regardless  of  the  fact  that  he 
does  not  know  it.  At  three  o'clock  he  will  have  a 
strange  feeling,  strange  tuggings  at  his  life,  and  in  all 
probability  he  will  say  to  his  companions,  ''I  have 
queer  feelings,  I  feel  as  if  I  were  about  to  do  some- 
thing foolish,  something  unaccountable."  Suddenly 
he  will  raise  his  arm,  wave  his  hat,  and  yell  for  Andrew 
Jackson.  Now  my  question  here  (which  I  ask  merely 
to  throw  light  upon  the  topic)  is  this:  Where  had  the 
suggestion  that  had  been  implanted  in  him  during 
his  hypnotic  state  been  lurking  during  the  twenty- 
four  hours  that  had  elapsed?  Certainly  not  in  his 
conscious,  normal  life,  for  during  these  twenty-four 
hours,  he  was  entirely  unaware  that  such  a  suggestion 


72  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

was  waiting  to  get  in  its  work  on  him.  There  is 
something  here  that  suggests  that  the  conservative 
forces  are  deeper  than  the  conscious  Ufe,  and  that 
the  roots  of  character  go  deeper  than  the  superficial, 
evanescent  Hfe  of  normal,  waking  consciousness. 

The  same  thing  is  shown  in  anaesthesia  and  in  the 
dehrium  of  fever.  Many  a  man  has  revealed  his  true 
character  while  under  the  influence  of  an  anaesthetic, 
and  many  a  person  has  talked  out  his  real  hfe  while 
in  the  dehrium  of  a  fever.  Many  illustrations  could 
be  given  but  none  need  be.  Things  that  have  been 
hidden  for  years,  for  decades,  have  then  come  to  the 
surface.  No  conscious  pull  during  all  these  decades 
has  been  strong  enough  to  bring  them  up,  but  when 
life  has  sloughed  off  from  the  top  centers  down,  these 
things  that  have  been  hidden  in  the  subsoil  for  years 
are  brought  out  once  more.  We  have  every  reason  to 
beheve,  although  we  shall  probably  never  be  able  to 
demonstrate  it,  that  the  roots  are  in  what  the  psychol- 
ogists call  the  subconscious  life.  The  greatest  thing 
you  can  say  about  a  man  in  connection  with  his  efficient 
character  is  not  that  he  is  a  great  thinker,  or  that  he 
has  a  strong  will,  or  a  fine  emotional  hfe.  The  greatest 
thing  is  the  sum  total  of  his  capitahzation  which  has 
been  covered  up  in  the  region  of  his  subconsciousness. 
And  so  far  as  we  know,  nothing  that  ever  goes  into 
the  hfe  is  lost.  Everything  that  goes  into  a  human 
Hfe  becomes  a  permanent  part  of  that  life. 

When  the  incidents  of  active  life  are  past,  when  the 
early  and  later  friendships  are  broken  forever  and  the 
man  in  his  last  days  stands  alone,  hke  some  lone  oak 


THE   ROOTS   OF   CHARACTER  73 

in  the  open  field,  he  reaUzes  the  truthfulness  of  the 
lesson  here  taught,  that  after  all  the  greatest  thing  in 
the  world  that  a  boy  does  or  that  the  man  does  is 
to  determine  the  company  that  he  will  have  when  he 
is  old.  The  old  man  recalls  distinctly  the  events  of 
fifty  years  ago  and  less  distinctly  the  events  of  a  dozen 
years  ago. 

There  are  four  things  which  I  wish  to  impress  upon 
the  reader:  first,  that  the  road  to  efficient  character 
has  three  stages,  that  of  unconscious  inefficiency,  that 
of  conscious  inefficiency,  and  that  of  unconscious  effi- 
ciency; second,  that  the  roots  of  character  are  deeper 
than  the  conscious  fife;  third,  that  nothing  that  goes 
into  human  life  is  ever  lost ;  and  fourth,  that  when  we 
are  young,  vigorous  and  active  we  are  providing 
joy  or  sorrow  for  the  days  to  come;  we  are  determin- 
ing the  company  we  shall  have  when  we  are  old. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
WILL,  THE  CENTER  OF  CHARACTER 

I  DO  not  propose  here  to  go  into  a  psychological 
discussion  of  the  will.  I  shall  make  no  attempt  to 
define  or  analyze  the  will,  and  I  am  not  interested  for 
the  purposes  of  this  chapter  to  enter  into  a  discussion 
of  the  freedom  of  the  will.  These  are  large  and  im- 
portant questions,  but  they  have  no  bearing  whatever 
upon  the  topic.  The  entire  world  acts  as  if  people 
were  free,  and  in  developing  this  I  shall  assume  that 
the  world  is  right  in  dealing  with  people  as  if  they  were 
free.  If  the  child  were  not  free  to  do  otherwise  than 
he  has  done  in  committing  a  misdemeanor  in  the 
school,  then  certainly  the  teacher  would  not  be  justi- 
fied in  meting  out  punishment  to  him.  The  ground 
for  punishment  in  the  home  or  in  the  school,  however 
misbehaved  the  child  may  be,  can  be  no  other  than 
that  of  freedom.  With  any  other  assumption  the 
child  is  irresponsible.  The  institution  of  the  state 
whose  organizing  idea  is  justice,  exercises  the  function 
of  control  or  punishment  on  the  assumption  of  the 
inherent  freedom  of  its  citizens  to  do  right.  With- 
out the  assumption  that  the  people  are  free  to  choose 
we  cannot  assume  that  they  are  responsible,  and 
without  such  assumption  correction  would  follow  only 

74 


WILL,  THE  CENTER  OF  CHARACTER        75 

illogically.  On  any  other  basis  than  that  of  the 
freedom  of  people  to  choose  and  to  will,  the  world 
would  go  to  pieces.  Every  man  would  be  a  law  unto 
himself,  which  means  the  absence  of  all  law;  and  law- 
lessness and  anarchy  would  reign.  Without  going  into 
any  psychological  or  philosophical  discussion  of  the 
question  then,  I  shall  assume  what  the  people  assume, 
and  shall  follow  out  my  purpose,  which  is  merely  to  show 
the  place  of  will;  that  it  is  the  center  in  our  psychical 
lives ;  that  it  is  fundamental  in  the  behavior  and  ef- 
ficiency of  the  people;  that  it  is  pivotal  in  all  conduct; 
that  it  is  the  tap  root  and  the  only  good  fruit  of  the  tree 
of  hfe. 

The  old  psychology,  so  called,  always  recognized 
the  conventional  classification  of  the  conscious  states 
or  activities  into  intellect,  emotion  and  will.  These 
functions  of  the  mind  were  supposed  to  be  exercised 
in  the  order  named.  One  became  aware  of  an  object 
or  situation,  cognized  it,  became  intelligent  as  to  it, 
and  thus  there  was  aroused  in  him  a  desire  for  it 
or  a  drawing  toward  it.  He  was  built  up,  made 
happy,  joyous,  glad  through  it.  Or  he  was  pulled 
down,  made  sad,  gloomy,  sorrowful,  angry  by  it. 
The  emotion  was  the  direct  result  of  the  intellect, 
and  dependent  upon  it,  was  made  up  and  advanced 
by  it.  If  the  object  created  an  emotion  of  pleasure  or 
desire,  the  individual  made  an  effort  to  secure  it,  he 
willed  to  have  it;  or  if  the  object  created  the  emotion 
of  aversion,  he  decided  against  it,  willed  to  avoid  it. 
Thus  the  will  grew  directly  out  of  the  emotional  life 
and  was  dependent  upon  it.     The  road  to  mental 


76  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

development  was  considered  a  road  with  three  turns, 
the  first  turn  always  coming  first,  the  last  turn  always 
coming  last.  To  illustrate:  The  student  got  a  taste 
of  mathematics  incidentally;  this  constituted  his 
knowledge  or  intelhgence  of  the  subject.  He  Uked 
it  —  which  constituted  his  emotional  attitude  toward 
the  subject  —  and  went  after  more  of  it — which  con- 
stituted his  willing  or  volitional  relation  toward  the 
subject. 

There  is  some  truth  in  this  theory,  but  as  a  theory- 
it  is  partial  and  inadequate.  While  I  do  not  profess 
to  say  the  last  word  upon  the  will  as  the  center  of 
character,  I  do  propose  to  show  that  in  all  fife,  in  the 
making  or  building  of  eflScient  character,  will  is  cen- 
tral, and  is  both  the  root  and  the  fruit  of  the  intellec- 
tual and  emotional  life.  It  is  the  soil  out  of  which 
knowledge  (intelligence)  and  emotion,  grow.  Not  only 
this,  but  it  is  the  only  fruitage  that  they  produce. 
A  few  simple  illustrations  will  make  this  last  point 
clear. 

I  have  a  friend  who  lectures  on  history  for  "history's 
sake";  but  my  friend  is  a  very  badly  puzzled  man 
when  he  is  asked  to  state  in  clear  terms  what  he 
means  by  "history's  sake."  The  fact  is  that  neither 
history  nor  zoology  nor  mathematics  nor  any  other 
subject  taught  in  the  school  has  a  "sake."  History 
and  all  the  rest  of  them  are  taught  for  the  sake  of 
something  else.  Why  is  history  taught?  The  only 
satisfactory  answer  is,  that  in  performing  our  duties  as 
members  of  society  we  shall  do  better  with  historic 
knowledge  and  historic  perspective;  we  shall  foreknow 


WILL,  THE  CENTER  OF  CHARACTER        77 

the  inevitable  results  of  certain  proposed  plans;  we 
shall  be  better  able  than  otherwise  to  do  the  appro- 
priate and  best  thing.  We  know  that  we  may  do. 
There  is  no  other  excuse  for  knowledge.  And  the 
doing  is  the  essence  of  will,  because  the  last  end 
of  will,  if  not  the  entire  essence  of  it,  is  getting  some- 
thing done.  All  other  elements  of  will  are  prelimi- 
nary steps  or  superficial  factors.  He  only  knows 
thoroughly  who  does  thoroughly.  What  is  the  fruit 
of  physiological  and  hygienic  knowledge?  It  is  better 
living.  What  is  the  fruit  of  mathematical  knowledge? 
It  is  the  modern  railway  system,  the  modern  sky- 
scraper, the  tunneling  of  mountains  and  the  irrigation 
of  deserts.  The  only  legitimate  fruit  of  mathematics 
is  getting  the  real  work  done  as  it  otherwise  could 
not  be  done.  So  in  the  knowledge  that  constitutes 
the  various  professions,  that  of  medicine  and  surgery, 
for  example,  the  fruitage  comes  only  after  the  appli- 
cation has  been  made.  Without  going  more  fully  into 
illustrations,  it  is  evident,  then,  that  the  only  legitimate 
function  of  knowledge  is  a  higher  and  more  appropriate 
form  of  adjustment  or  conduct  than  would  otherwise 
be  possible. 

The  will  is  just  as  truly  the  fruitage  of  the  emotional 
life  as  it  is  of  the  intellect.  There  is  probably  no 
mental  dissipation  in  the  world  so  great  as  that  of 
weltering  in  fine  emotions  if  they  issue  not  in  high 
and  holy  living.  Unless  the  emotional  life  of  the 
individual  results  in  bringing  him  to  a  higher  plane  of 
adjustment,  it  means  demoralization  and  deterioration. 

One  of  the  much  used  words  in  modern  pedagogy 


78  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOE   THE   TEACHER 

is  "functioning."  We  have  gained  the  advanced 
ground  where  we  care  but  Uttle  how  much  the  indi- 
vidual knows  or  how  fine  is  his  emotional  life  unless 
his  knowledge  and  his  emotion  mean  getting  him 
somewhere  or  getting  something  done.  My  plea  here 
is  that  the  finest  fruitage  of  the  intellectual  life  and  of 
the  emotional  life  is  will. 

No  less  is  it  true  that  the  will  is  the  root  as  well 
as  the  fruit  of  the  intellectual  and  emotional  life;  and 
by  will  I  mean  doing,  adjustment,  living,  getting  the 
task  done.  Any  adult  looking  at  a  tree  would  at 
once  pronounce  it  cylindrical,  but  no  one  ever  saw  a 
cylinder.  The  adult  is  able  to  pronounce  it  a  cylinder 
because  all  his  life  he  has  viewed  trees  from  one  side 
and  another;  and  the  knowledge  that  this  tree  is  a 
cylinder  is  possible  to  him  and  comes  to  him  at  a 
glance  because  he  has  lived  in  a  world  of  cylinders. 
The  fact  is  that  not  only  one's  perceptions  but  prac- 
tically all  the  knowledge  that  one  gathers  as  he  goes 
along  are  the  epitome  of  his  past  living.  If  the  front 
of  a  man  could  go  detached  down  the  street,  it  would 
serve  practically  all  the  purposes  of  a  man  so  far 
as  those  whom  it  should  meet  would  be  concerned. 
They  see  the  front  merely,  and  that  only  indefinitely, 
—  a  mere  shadow  even  of  the  front,  and  the  rest  is 
assumed  and  thrown  in.  This  is  because  the  indi- 
vidual has  always  seen  the  front  of  a  man  coming  and 
assumed  that  the  rest  was  there.  The  superficial 
signs  give  him  knowledge  through  his  past  behavior 
and  conduct.  Daily  we  pass  up  and  down  the  street 
and   assume   the    buildings.     We   would   be  greatly 


WILL,  THE  CENTER  OF  CHARACTER        79 

surprised  if  some  one  should  tell  us  that  these  are 
just  rows  of  fronts.  In  meeting  these  things  we  see 
what  we  see  and  assume  that  which  is  unseen.  If  one 
never  knew  a  thing  until  he  knew  it  first  hand  in  its 
entirety,  the  number  of  things  learned  would  be  com- 
paratively small.  Now  the  point  that  I  am  desirous 
of  emphasizing  here  is  that  because  we  have  lived,  we 
gain  knowledge  of  most  things  through  meager  and 
superficial  signs  and  that  the  great  bulk  of  knowledge 
thus  gained,  is  the  direct  outcome  of  the  life  that  is 
producing  it. 

And  so  it  is  with  the  emotional  fife.  James  and 
Lange  say  that  we  are  afraid  because  we  run,  that  we 
are  angry  because  we  strike.  I  shall  not  argue  this 
question  here,  but  merely  give  it  as  my  conviction 
that  they  are  not  only  partially  but  entirely  correct 
in  their  view.  Whoever  has  the  poise  and  the  self- 
control  to  remain  perfectly  quiet  in  every  fiber  of  his 
being  may  judge  whether  it  is  wise  to  run  or  to  strike, 
but  until  he  begins  to  act  he  may  not  have  the  sen- 
sation of  fear  or  of  anger.  Those  who  are  not  sure 
that  this  is  true  and  who  are  therefore  inclined  to 
reject  it,  will  at  least  agree  that  if  he  who  is  afraid 
runs,  he  will  become  more  afraid;  and  if  he  who  is 
angry  strikes,  he  will  become  more  angry  —  that  in 
this  partial  sense  at  least  the  emotions  of  anger  and 
of  fear  are  the  results  of  the  motions  of  running  and 
striking. 

If  then  the  only  legitimate  excuse  for  knowledge 
and  emotion  is  the  finer  and  more  appropriate  adjust- 
ment which  is  the  last  end  of  will;  and  if  the  roots  of 


80  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

knowledge  and  emotion  are  found  in  the  subsoils  of 
action  or  living,  it  must  be  plain  that  will  is  both  the 
root  and  the  fruit  and  is  therefore  of  fundamental 
importance  in  our  lives.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  I 
insist  that  will  is  the  center  of  character. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
WORK  AND   CHARACTER 

Two  things  can  be  observed  the  world  over:  first, 
that  as  a  rule  people  do  as  little  as  is  necessary  to  get 
what  they  desire,  that  most  people  travel  the  short- 
est road  possible  to  get  where  they  wish  to  go;  and 
second,  that  whoever  will  help  may  help,  so  that  in 
a  comparatively  short  time  the  lifted  is  wiUing  to  sit 
down  on  the  lifter  and  ride  on  through  Ufe.  As  a 
result  of  these  things  it  has  become  a  problem  to  the 
parent  to  know  how  many  doors  of  opportunity  he 
should  open  to  his  son  or  daughter  at  the  risk  of 
pauperizing  his  child.  It  has  become  a  problem  to 
the  teacher  to  know  how  much  assistance  he  can  give 
his  student  at  the  risk  of  rendering  him  a  mental 
pauper.  It  has  become  a  problem  for  the  wise  pastor 
to  know  how  many  of  the  burdens  of  his  people  he 
can  share  with  them  and  bear  for  them  at  the  risk  of 
rendering  them  social  and  spiritual  paupers.  It  has 
become  a  problem  for  the  captain  of  industry,  the 
small  one  as  well  as  the  large  one,  to  know  how  sym- 
pathetic and  considerate  he  can  be  of  his  employees 
and  not  render  them  industrial  paupers.  In  this 
chapter  I  wish  to  show  the  close  relationship  between 
work  and  character.     And  by  character  in  this  con- 

81 


82  FUNDAMENTAL   PACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

nection  I  do  not  mean  that  negative,  worthless, 
insipid  kind  of  human  hfe,  the  absence  of  everything 
aggressive,  whereby  the  individual  manages  to  keep 
out  of  the  jail  and  the  penitentiary,  but  I  mean 
strength  of  character,  efficient  character,  ability  to 
do  things,  personal  power.  I  wish  to  show  that  these 
characteristics  are  developed  in  the  life,  that  one 
imbues  himself  with  power  or  weakness  in  the  process 
of  daily  living,  and  that  we  are  moralized  or  demoral- 
ized in  the  daily  activities  of  life;  that  no  amount  of 
instruction  in  ethics  will  save  a  man  from  the  king- 
dom of  small  things  if  he  busies  himself  in  the  per- 
formance of  small  things. 

The  Spaniards  have  a  proverb  which  says,  "The  good 
is  enemy  to  the  best."  With  the  riffraff  of  humankind 
this  is  probably  not  true,  but  with  the  more  respect- 
able people  it  is  true  that  the  great  enemy  of  the 
best  is  the  good.  The  people  are  satisfied  to  dwell 
upon  the  low  levels  of  mediocrity  and  therefore 
they  seldom  attain  the  high  plateaus  of  mastery. 
For  example,  within  the  last  decade  long  steps  for- 
ward have  been  taken  in  the  construction  of  modern 
school  buildings,  in  the  equipment  of  modern  labora- 
tories, in  the  building  and  supplying  of  large  libraries, 
in  the  professional  training  of  teachers.  These  steps 
are  good.  They  are  even  yet  too  few  and  too  short, 
but  they  are  out  of  all  proportion  to  the  real  advance- 
ment that  has  been  made  on  the  part  of  the  children 
who  have  attended  these  schools,  who  have  studied  in 
these  laboratories  and  these  libraries,  and  who  have 
been  taught  by  these  professionally  trained  teachers. 


WORK   AND   CHARACTER  83 

The  advance  in  knowledge,  virility  and  power  that 
the  graduates  of  to-day  have  made  over  the  graduates 
of  a  decade  ago  is  microscopically  small.  With  justi- 
fiable pride  have  the  people  been  congratulating  them- 
selves upon  the  fine  advance  that  has  been  made. 
Yet  unconsciously  to  themselves,  their  teachers  and 
their  parents,  the  students  of  the  last  decade  or  two, 
have  demonstrated  the  truthfulness  of  the  Spanish 
maxim  that  "the  good  is  enemy  to  the  best."  These 
gains  that  we  have  made  in  the  form  of  equipment 
and  well-trained  teachers  will  be  of  greatest  value 
when  once  it  is  recognized  and  realized  that  they  can 
never  be  of  more  than  secondary  importance  to  the 
student. 

It  is  said  that  there  are  institutions  of  higher  learn- 
ing in  this  country  with  long  and  honorable  records  in 
which  students  can  pass  on  a  minimum  grade  of  fifty 
and  in  which  it  is  possible  for  the  student  to  attain 
his  degree  without  so  much  as  looking  at  his  books 
from  the  time  he  enters  the  institution  until  he  grad- 
uates from  it.  This  may  be  a  false  indictment.  I 
hope  it  is,  but  to  a  degree  at  least  it  is  true  that  many 
young  men  who  spend  some  of  the  best  years  of  their 
lives  in  such  institutions  decapitalize  and  demoralize 
themselves,  and  so  are  rendered  unfit  for  the  later 
duties  of  life.  In  one  institution  in  which  I  worked 
for  four  years,  my  own  observation  was  that  the 
high  school  that  sent  us  on  the  average  the  best 
students  we  had  in  college  was  a  school  with  only 
fairly  well-trained  teachers,  very  ordinary  buildings, 
small  laboratories  and  no  well-supplied  library.    But 


84  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

it  was  a  school  in  which  there  was  a  tradition  that 
there  is  some  credit  in  excelHng  and  that  it  is  no 
unmanly  thing  to  lead  one's  class;  that  it  is  not 
commendable  to  see  on  how  small  an  amount  of 
work  the  student  can  make  his  credits.  The  large 
number  of  young  men  and  young  women  who  have 
come  up  to  college  from  these  less  than  average  oppor- 
tunities have  always  stood  high  in  their  college 
classes.  No  other  high  school  in  the  state  with  the 
best-trained  teachers,  the  most  modern  buildings, 
the  best  laboratory  and  library  facilities,  has  made 
so  good  a  record. 

The  people  do  not  seem  to  realize  that  one  reason 
why  the  young  man  could  not  wear  the  King's 
armor  was  that  he  had  not  earned  the  right  to  wear 
it.  He  had  never  built  an  armor  for  himself  nor  for 
any  one  else,  but  he  had  built  many  slings  and  had 
used  them  effectively,  and  once  again  he  makes  a 
sling  and  uses  it  to  good  purpose.  The  people  do  not 
yet  seem  to  realize  that  the  only  animal  in  the  world 
that  can  wear  a  shell  gracefully  and  with  benefit  to 
itself  is  the  animal  that  has  built  its  own  shell  out  of 
its  own  blood.  The  people  do  not  seem  to  realize 
that  the  only  real  merit  in  the  world  is  earned  merit, 
and  that  the  only  personal  power,  humanly  speaking, 
that  there  is  in  the  world  is  self-made  power.  There 
is  but  one  road  to  efficient  character  and  that  is  the 
road  of  consistent  application  to  something  that  is 
worth  while;  and  in  the  making  of  human  hfe  all 
other  things,  desirable  as  they  may  be,  are  secondary, 
and  are  valuable  only  as  they  contribute  to  the  ease 


WORK   AND   CHARACTER  85 

and  the  efficiency  of  the  adjustment  of  the  individual 
to  his  tasks.  The  great  traits  of  character  which 
make  the  sum  total  of  human  power  are  valuable 
only  through  work.  It  is  thus  that  the  trait  of  over- 
coming is  attained,  the  fruit  of  which  is  a  fine 
sense  of  mastery.  Through  one's  accomplishments 
he  develops  the  trait  of  completeness  or  incomplete- 
ness, dependent  entirely  upon  the  character  of  his 
performance,  because  let  it  never  be  forgotten  that 
one  is  made  or  unmade,  moralized  or  demoralized, 
strengthened  or  weakened,  made  fit  or  unfit  by  his 
work.  Nothing  is  so  conducive  to  a  sense  of  being  a 
producer,  a  real  factor,  as  is  the  act  of  producing,  of 
getting  things  done. 

Through  work  one  develops  a  fine  sense  of  inde- 
pendence, of  self-sufficiency  and  of  self-respect.  He 
gains  the  sense  of  freedom  from  the  slavery  of  small 
things  and  small  performances  and  comes  into  the 
kingdom  of  a  free  man.  Thus  certain  beneficent  re- 
sults of  work  are  these  marks  on  mind  and  character, 
and  by  no  other  process  can  they  be  laid  on  a  man. 
The  obverse  is  just  as  true  because  one  becomes  like 
his  work.  A  bungler  does  bunglesome  work;  the 
result  of  bunglesome  work  is  a  bungler.  A  trifler 
does  trifling  work;  the  result  of  triffing  work  is  that 
the  trifler  is  confirmed  as  such.  Small  work  means 
small  results  in  the  life  of  the  worker  as  well  as  in  the 
thing  done.  The  result  of  stealing  is  a  thief.  The 
result  of  a  life  of  sane  sacrifice  and  service  is  a  saint. 
One  of  the  largest  problems,  therefore,  that  confronts 
a.  young  person  is  the  selection  of  his  life's  work,  and 


86  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE  TEACHER 

it  is  a  problem  which  he  alone  can  solve.  Failure 
and  misery  have  resulted  from  too  much  interference 
here.  The  doors  of  opportunity  should  be  opened  to 
the  young  person;  friendly  and  unprejudiced  advice 
and  counsel  should  be  given  him;  but  he  has  his  own 
life  to  live,  he  knows  as  no  one  else  can  the  pulls  upon 
his  mind,  his  heart  and  his  life.  The  parent  and  the 
teacher  should  render  advisory  service  and  should  im- 
press upon  him  with  faithfulness  the  magnitude  and 
meaning  of  this  choice.  Then  he  must  be  left  free 
to  go  his  own  way,  knowing  that  in  the  selection  and 
execution  of  the  work  that  he  is  choosing  he  must 
work  out  the  pattern  of  his  own  life,  believing  that  so 
long  as  his  work  contributes  to  the  wealth  of  the 
world  and  to  his  own  personal  welfare  there  is  posi- 
tively no  high  nor  low  except  as  the  spirit  of  the 
worker  makes  it  so,  realizing  that  whoever  does  large 
things  in  a  large  way  becomes  large,  and  that  who- 
ever does  small  things  in  a  small  way  becomes  small. 
To  the  magnanimous  all  things  are  magnanimous  and 
all  things  are  magnificent.  To  the  small  all  people 
are  small  and  all  things  are  mean. 


CHAPTER  XV 
PLAY  AND   CHARACTER 

Play  marks  the  life  no  less  than  does  work,  for  all 
activity  produces  its  result  in  organization  and  tend- 
ency. Play  is  the  expression  of  a  universal  instinct 
in  all  animal  life.  This  is  shown  in  certain  character- 
istics of  play.  In  the  first  place  all  animals  play; 
there  is  not  an  animal  form  so  low,  and  there  is  not 
one  so  high  and  so  complete  that,  in  its  youth  at 
least,  it  does  not  play.  The  slug  (soft  snail)  plays, 
snakes  play,  young  fowls,  young  calves,  kittens, 
puppies  play,  —  every  normally  born  human  being 
plays  through  childhood  and  youth;  and  fortunate  is 
he  who  can  remain  young  throughout  all  his  hfe  and 
who  finds  pleasure  in  play.  Not  only  is  it  true  that 
all  animals  play  but  each  species  of  animal  has  its 
own  style  of  play.  This  is  what  we  should  expect, 
because  no  two  organisms  are  alike  and  the  destinies 
of  no  two  species  of  animals  are  the  same.  All 
animals  play  instinctively,  showing  that  play  is  a 
deep-seated  function,  and  in  all  play  there  is  the 
factor  of  make-beUeve,  which  is  one  of  the  marks  that 
distinguishes  play  from  work.  Many  a  boy  has 
plodded  on  through  a  difficult  piece  of  work  when  he 
has  had  the  imagination  to  turn  it  into  play.  A 
classical  illustration  of  this  is  Tom  Sawyer. 

87 


88  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

An  instinct  so  universal  as  that  of  play,  and  so 
generally  expressed,  cannot  fail  to  arrest  the  atten- 
tion of  the  thoughtful  mind  and  demand  an  ex- 
planation. The  most  valuable  and  satisfactory  of 
these  explanations  is  the  surplus-energy  theory.  The 
young  are  bubbling  over  with  energy,  and  play  serves 
as  a  safety  valve.  The  mischievous  child  becomes 
docile  through  play.  In  this  explanation  we  doubt- 
less have  a  true  word, —  that  much  of  the  play  in  the 
world  is  due  to  an  exuberance  of  vitality.  But  there 
is  much  play  that  is  not  explained  in  this  way.  The 
surplus-energy  theory  must  be  supplemented  by  the 
recreation  theory.  On  the  same  theory  that  a  horse 
will  travel  farther  and  tire  less  on  an  undulating 
road  than  he  will  on  a  level  road,  is  play  found  to  be 
a  method  of  recreation  from  the  fatigue  of  work. 
Different  muscles  are  brought  into  action;  different 
stores  of  energy  are  set  free;  the  mind  is  freed  from 
the  attention  that  work  demanded.  A  short  period 
of  play  often  restores  one  to  his  normal  state. 

Another  theory  which  helps  in  the  explanation  of 
play  and  is  not  merely  supplementary  to  the  surplus- 
energy  theory,  is  that  of  preparation  for  the  so-called 
sterner  duties  of  later  life.  The  play  of  the  kitten,  of 
the  puppy,  of  the  young  child,  are  all  prophetic  of  the 
work  of  the  adult  hfe.  If  a  program  were  to  be 
studiously  thought  out  whereby  the  child  in  its  in- 
fancy and  childhood  could  be  trained  for  its  later 
duties  of  business  and  professional  life,  no  schedule 
could  be  planned  that  would  be  half  so  good  as  the  one 
which  the  child  instinctively  follows  in  its  play. 


PLAY   AND   CHARACTER  89 

One  other  satisfactory  explanation  of  play  is  that  of 
the  recapitulation  theory.  When  damaging  news 
comes  one  sets  his  teeth,  clenches  his  fist  and  stamps 
his  foot,  because  his  remote  ancestors  met  and  over- 
came offensive  things  (the  animal  or  the  enemy)  by 
grappling,  biting  and  stamping.  So  to-day,  when  the 
author  of  the  damaging  news  is  thousands  of  miles 
away  we  display  these  now  useless  activities  which 
were  of  greatest  value  centuries  ago. 

Any  one  who  will  observe  the  play  of  young  animals, 
the  make-beheve  of  pursuit  and  fight,  and  the  play 
of  young  children  in  their  hand-to-hand  competitions, 
in  unorganized  plays  and  in  organized  games,  cannot 
doubt  that  their  performances  are  the  recapitulation 
of  activities  once  useful  in  the  preservation  of  the  in- 
dividual and  the  species. 

What  now  is  the  close  relationship  between  char- 
acter and  this  universal  instinct  to  play?  I  wish  to 
make  it  clear  that  the  relationship  here  is  just  as  im- 
portant and  just  as  close  as  that  between  character 
and  work.  Play  of  course  is  different  from  work.  It 
is  the  spontaneous  expression  of  the  need  of  the 
individual,  and  its  end  is  in  itself,  not  in  the  objective 
task.  The  fine  traits  of  character  brought  out  here 
as  nowhere  else  come  unconsciously.  The  chance  to 
direct  oneself,  the  freedom  of  choice  and  action 
which  any  growing  child  has  the  opportunity  to 
exercise  as  a  worker,  are  small,  for  he  goes  forth  under 
direction,  and  he  and  his  work  are  merely  means  to 
objective  results.  Play,  in  developing  the  instinct 
and  power  of  initiative,   exceeds   all   other  oppor- 


90  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

tunities  of  life  combined.  Not  only  this,  but  play  is 
a  large  factor  in  socializing  the  child.  Here  without 
superior  guidance  he  must  learn  the  fine  art  of  adjust- 
ing himself  to  others.  Indeed  the  child  of  ten  or 
eleven  years  of  age  does  not  play  organized  games 
because  he  has  not  yet  learned  the  fine  art  of  human 
adjustment,  but  later  on  we  find  him  playing  on  a 
baseball  team,  and  playing  other  games  which  require 
co-operation  and  adaptation.  He  has  become  social- 
ized and  he  is  taking  the  first  steps  toward  efficiency 
in  institutional  life.  The  child  who  learns  to  play  as 
he  should,  who  has  done  well  on  the  athletic  or  gym- 
nasium teams,  will  thereby  be  a  stronger  member  of 
the  church,  of  the  state  and  of  all  organized  institu- 
tions than  he  otherwise  would  have  been.  The  great 
difficulty  in  our  organized  institutions  of  civihzation 
to-day  is  that  men  have  not  learned  the  fine  art  of 
adjustment. 

Through  play  large  results  are  obtained  in  the 
physical  life  of  the  individual.  Every  one  appre- 
ciates the  danger  incident  to  athletics  and  other 
forms  of  organized  play;  but  the  health  and  physical 
virility  and  the  power  to  endure  punishment  are  in 
their  beneficent  results  out  of  all  proportion  to  the 
damage  thus  done.  And  no  work  in  the  world,  men- 
tal or  physical,  so  quickly  and  certainly  makes  for 
mental  agility,  accuracy  and  decision  as  does  play; 
and  the  same  strong  word  may  be  spoken  for  play  in 
behalf  of  its  beneficent  moral  results. 

But  we  must  not  forget  here  that  the  most  dis- 
astrous results  that  come  to  a  human  being  are  those 


PLAY   AND   CHARACTER  91 

that  follow  the  misuse  of  a  good  thing.  Bad  things 
appeal  to  and  injure  only  bad  people.  The  respect- 
able people  in  the  world  are  injured  by  the  misuse  of 
good  things.  It  is  true  of  the  school,  of  the  college, 
of  money,  of  friends,  of  the  church,  and  it  is  no  less 
true  of  the  fine  universal  instinct  to  play.  Men  have 
become  brutal  through  play;  they  have  laid  down 
their  physical  capital  at  the  altar  of  play;  they  have 
become  demoralized  through  play.  Promising  men  in 
our  institutions  of  higher  learning  have  become  bound 
hand  and  foot  by  play  and  have  made  discreditable 
and  sometimes  dishonorable  records  as  students. 
My  point  here,  it  will  be  observed,  is  not  to  pronounce 
a  eulogy  upon  play,  neither  is  it  to  disparage  it,  but  to 
show  its  significance.  It  is  to  show  that  through  it 
people  are  made  or  unmade;  that  it  is  a  thing  that 
cannot  be  ignored;  that  whoever  ignores  it  is  less 
than  human;  that  there  is  the  very  closest  relation- 
ship between  one's  play  and  one's  character;  that  one 
of  the  roads  to  physical,  mental  and  moral  efficiency 
is  the  road  of  play,  if  this  road  runs  on  life's  table- 
lands; and  one  of  the  roads  to  decapitalization  in  all 
these  respects  is  the  road  of  play  if  it  runs  through 
the  lowlands  of  life.  Nothing  determines  character 
more  than  play,  and  there  is  no  finer  index  to  charac- 
ter than  the  kind  of  play  which  one  enjoys. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
PERSISTENCE  AND   CHARACTER 

In  his  ''Outlines  of  Psychology"  Royce  makes 
much  of  persistence  through  restlessness.  We  all  ap- 
preciate the  value  of  initiative.  We  all  find  it  very 
difficult  to  tell  what  we  mean  by  initiative  and  to 
explain  it.  Royce  throws  some  light  upon  this  sub- 
ject. Through  inherent  restlessness  one  organism 
will  persist.  In  the  absence  of  this  restlessness 
another  organism  does  not  persist.  It  quickly  be- 
comes quiescent.  The  stimulations  of  the  former 
result  in  reactions  on  the  part  of  the  organism  entirely 
foreign  to  anything  experienced  by  the  organism 
which  becomes  early  satisfied,  and  it  thus  finds  new 
environment.  So  that  the  restless  organism  is  con- 
tinually doing  things  which  the  other  one  is  not,  and 
is  characterized  by  what  the  world  calls  initiative. 
Probably  the  zebra  is  not  more  stimulated  by  the  har- 
ness which  is  thrown  on  his  back  than  is  the  young 
horse  under  the  same  conditions ;  but  the  zebra  is  rest- 
less :  it  persists,  it  will  not  be  broken.  The  young  horse 
with  its  heredity  reaches  the  stage  of  quiescence  much 
more  readily,  ceases  to  be  restless,  succumbs  to  civiliza- 
tion and  is  domesticated.  Whether  one  goes  into  the 
civilized  institutions  of  men  or  sits  down  satisfied  to 

92 


PERSISTENCE   AND   CHARACTER  93 

have  but  a  look-in  into  these  institutions  is  determined 
largely,  if  not  indeed  entirely,  by  the  degree  of  persist- 
ence or  the  native  restlessness  of  the  organism.  Now 
in  all  probability  this  restlessness  is  an  inherent,  un- 
changeable quantity;  but  one  thing  the  intelligent 
human  being  can  do  which  will  be  of  great  value  to  him. 
Recognizing  that  restlessness  is  a  given  unchangeable 
quantity,  he  may  also  recognize  that  the  growth  in 
persistence,  if  he  is  to  have  any  growth  here,  need  not 
be  allowed  to  depend  upon  the  proportionate  increase 
in  the  restlessness.  He  can  substitute  knowledge. 
Kjiowing  that  since  his  restlessness  is  of  a  compara- 
tively quiescent  type  he  would  naturally  persist  but 
little;  knowing  that  he  can,  however,  attain  large 
things  only  as  he  persists,  he  can  go  forward  to 
larger  things  upon  this  basis  of  knowledge  and  dogged 
determination  not  to  be  commonplace  and  contented 
to  stop  as  he  travels  up  the  road  of  life.  The  large 
difference  in  men  is  that  one  sits  down  contented  at 
the  first  turn  in  the  road;  the  other,  because  he  can- 
not be  satisfied,  representing  it  may  be  no  larger 
native  ability  than  the  former,  pushes  on  and  gains 
an  experience  and  a  capitalization  in  the  course  of 
time  entirely  unknown  to  the  former. 

Inherent  restlessness  is  shown  in  the  inquisitive 
child  who  is  changing  from  one  thing  to  another, 
breaking  things  to  pieces,  opening  things  up,  asking 
endless  questions.  When  the  mother  has  answered 
the  child's  questions  to  her  satisfaction  she  has  only 
started  the  child  on  a  new  set  of  inquiries.  Later 
this  inquisitiveness  is  illustrated  by  the  open-eyed, 


94  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

hungry-minded  youth  who  devours  book  after  book, 
climbs  trees,  hunts  birds'  nests,  and  is  interested  in 
taking  apart  and  setting  up  machinery.  Later  in  life 
this  principle  of  persistence  through  restlessness  is 
illustrated  by  the  investigator,  —  the  Wright  brothers, 
Marconi.  It  is  not  that  these  men  are  so  much  bent 
upon  fortune,  or  even  upon  startling  the  world  or 
rendering  it  a  great  service,  I  fancy,  as  it  is  that  they 
are  restless,  they  sense  something  ahead.  Their  dis- 
coveries will  be  of  great  value  to  the  world,  but  they 
are  not  held  to  the  task  so  much  by  a  sense  of  being 
of  large  service  (although  this  has  its  place  in  their 
minds)  as  by  the  nervous  push  which  will  not  allow 
them  to  stop.  Many  another  man  may  long  to 
render  as  large  a  service  but  his  temperament  is  such 
that  he  is  not  goaded  on  along  the  lines  of  investiga- 
tion. One  of  the  large  results  of  persistence  through 
restlessness  is  that  many  men  of  only  average  en- 
dowment are  occupying  large  and  responsible  posi- 
tions in  all  lines  of  professional  and  business  life.  The 
important  places  in  education,  in  law,  in  the  ministry, 
in  medicine  are  thus  filled  by  men  of  average  endow- 
ment. On  the  other  hand,  many  men  of  large  native 
endowment  are  occupying  small  places;  they  are 
men  early  satisfied,  they  have  quiescent  tempera- 
ments; they  have  the  native  capacity  to  master 
almost  anything  if  they  could  get  to  it,  but  they  do 
not  have  the  persistence  that  carries  them  to  the  task 
and  the  large  opportunity;  and  so  regardless  of  their 
comparatively  large  endowment  they  do  compara- 
tively small  work  in  the  world. 


PERSISTENCE   AND   CHARACTER  95 

Some  years  ago  President  W.  L.  Bryan,  of  Indiana 
University,  conceived  the  notion  through  his  obser- 
vation and  experiments  that  many  people  become 
"near-great,"  that  they  in  all  probability  stop  just 
short  of  realizing  the  best  there  is  in  them,  or  better 
things  than  they  have  yet  realized;  that  they  take 
out  the  papers  of  citizenship  in  the  country  in  which 
they  have  been  dwelling  because  they  have  not  quite 
persistence  enough  to  cross  the  border  into  the  land 
of  larger  promise.  President  Bryan's  student.  Noble 
Harter,  an  expert  telegrapher,  opened  up  a  field  of 
experiment  in  the  telegraphic  language.  Through  this 
experiment  they  found  that  practically  all  the  young 
people  who  begin  to  learn  the  telegraphic  language 
make  rapid  improvement  at  the  beginning.  In  the 
first  weeks  they  are  encouraged  with  their  prog- 
ress; but  as  the  weeks  go  forward  progress  is  made 
much  more  slowly;  and  after  all,  the  large  per- 
centage of  those  who  begin  to  learn  the  telegraphic 
language  give  it  up  just  before  they  become  pro- 
ficient enough  to  make  it  pay  or  to  take  charge  of  a 
small  ofiice.  The  small  percentage,  those  who  finally 
acquire  the  language,  did  not  in  all  probability  make 
more  rapid  gains  than  those  who  gave  it  up,  but  they 
persisted,  they  were  restless,  or,  as  I  have  suggested 
before,  they  knew  that  they  must  persist,  and  in 
a  comparatively  short  time  they  were  born  into  a 
higher  kingdom  of  skill  and  efficiency.  These  are  the 
people  who  are  in  the  small  telegraphic  offices  the 
country  over.  Now  many  of  these  become  satisfied 
with  their  attainments ;  they  do  not  seek  greater  skill; 


96  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

they  have  reached  the  stage  of  quiescence;  and  so  we 
have  all  over  the  country  men  and  women  in  the 
comparatively  small  offices  who  have  been  there  for 
many  years.  But  others  are  not  thus  easily  satisfied. 
They  put  forth  every  effort  to  improve.  The  im- 
provement is  slow;  they  move  as  it  were  on  a  plateau; 
they  do  not  show  greater  efficiency  than  they  did 
months  before,  but  in  the  case  of  most  of  these  the 
experience  is  that  finally  and  very  suddenly  the  oper- 
ator is  able  to  do  work  of  an  entirely  different  class 
from  that  in  which  he  has  been  working.  Then  there 
comes  to  him  the  plateau  experience  again.  It  is  a 
long  road  and  a  monotonous  one,  but  if  he  persists  he 
will  in  the  course  of  time  reclassify  himself.  So 
Mr.  Bryan  and  Mr.  Harter  found  that  there  are  three 
or  four  stages  of  skill  and  efficiency  in  the  telegraphic 
language.  There  is  the  stage  where  one  is  able  to 
take  the  small  office;  there  is  the  advanced  stage  of 
the  good  operator;  and  there  is  the  more  advanced 
stage  of  the  expert.  The  expert  in  the  first  few  weeks 
and  months  of  his  apprenticeship  showed  no  more 
native  ability  than  those  who  remained  upon  the  low 
level  a  lifetime.  Indeed  he  may  not  have  shown 
more  ability  than  the  large  percentage  of  those  who 
dropped  out  before  they  had  attained  the  lowest 
level.  To-day  in  his  profession  he  is  a  picked  man, 
an  expert,  due  entirely,  the  psychologists  think,  to 
the  fact  that  he  could  not  be  satisfied,  that  he  was 
restless,  that  he  was  persistent,  that  he  would  go  up 
the  road  even  though  he  must  climb  hills,  and  the 
eminence  that  he  has  attained  in  his  profession  is  the 


PERSISTENCE  AND   CHARACTER  97 

result  of  such  persistent  climbing.  He  is  a  strong 
character,  an  eflScient  character  in  his  business.  A 
close  relationship  exists  between  persistence  and 
character. 

We  are  not  all  interested  in  the  telegraphic  language, 
but  whoever  thinks  is  interested  in  the  meaning  of 
this  experiment  and  its  application  to  the  lives  of 
the  people.  The  bright,  lazy  fellow  is  satisfied  when 
he  accompUshes  seven  out  of  the  ten  problems  or 
seventy  per  cent  of  anything.  He  goes  through  the 
schools  with  his  minimum  of  accomplishment  and  out 
into  life  with  a  minimum  of  attainment  and  a  maxi- 
mum of  decapitalization  through  his  lack  of  applica- 
tion. The  inevitable  results  of  this  kind  of  thing  are 
small  things,  subjectively  and  objectively.  His  class- 
mate, "slow  in  the  head,"  achieves  with  difficulty, 
but  he  cannot  sleep  until  the  work  is  accomplished; 
he  is  restless  under  the  unaccomplished  task.  He 
has  a  dogged  persistence.  It  costs  midnight  oil  and 
human  energy,  but  when  the  new  day  dawns  ten  of 
the  ten  problems  have  been  solved.  He  goes  through 
school  in  this  way.  He  comes  out  not  only  with  a  com- 
paratively large  attainment  but  with  a  character  of 
steel,  and  in  the  course  of  years  he  comes  to  occupy 
large  and  responsible  positions. 

But  an  even  higher  result  of  persistence  is  that  it 
leads  the  individual  to  self-discovery.  The  person 
who  can  be  satisfied  to  dwell  in  the  lowlands  is  stim- 
ulated only  by  the  things  that  are  in  the  lowlands 
and  he  is  never  led  to  the  real  discovery  of  himself. 
Here  is  the  great  chance  and  the  great  function  of 


98  FUNDAMENTAL  FACTS  FOR  THE   TEACHER 

the  high  school  and  the  college.  Many  a  man  has 
been  a  misfit  throughout  his  entire  hfe  because  he 
did  not  persist  until  he  reached  the  physical  labora- 
tory. Many  a  girl  has  been  a  misfit  throughout 
life  because  she  has  not  persisted  in  attending  to  the 
courses  in  English,  in  art  and  in  music  that  the 
schools  offer.  It  is  a  fortunate  thing  for  the  young 
person  who  has  traveled  the  long  and  tortuous  road 
of  the  common  schools,  the  high  school  and  the  first 
three  years  of  college,  when  the  stimuli  come  flooding 
into  his  life  during  his  senior  year  which  reveal  him 
to  himself,  and  he  realizes  that  he  has  found  himself, 
his  place  and  his  work.  He  who  persists  not  has  not 
these  stimuli,  and  therefore  in  all  probability  self- 
discovery  may  never  come  to  him,  and  instead  of 
doing  his  own  piece  of  work,  he  goes  on  through  life 
doing  just  anybody's  work,  which  has  about  the 
value  of  nobody's  work.  The  most  pathetic  situ- 
ation in  the  world  is  to  find  young  people  of  large 
endowment  who  lack  native  persistence  or  whose 
parents  or  teachers  have  not  persisted  for  them  until 
they  have  learned  the  lesson  for  themselves:  they  sit 
down  at  the  first  crossroads  of  life,  down  in  the  low- 
lands, and  are  satisfied.  Fortunate  indeed  is  the 
young  person  who  is  not  early  satisfied ;  the  way  may 
not  be  clear,  the  road,  so  far  as  he  is  able  to  see  it, 
may  be  a  crooked  and  a  rough  one,  but  whatever  it 
is  there  is  an  inner  impulse  which  makes  him  travel 
it.  And  fortunate  indeed  is  the  young  person  who  as 
he  travels  the  road  can  see  the  footprints  of  the  men 
and  the  women  who  have  traveled  it  before  him,  who 


PERSISTENCE   AND   CHARACTER  99 

has  every  reason  to  believe  that  it  can  be  traveled, 
and  keeps  on  and  on  until  he  finds  his  place,  until  he 
discovers  himself  and  makes  the  adjustment  to  life 
which  enables  him  to  do  his  work. 

Persistence  simply  means  exposure,  nothing  more. 
Exposure  should  mean  experience;  experience  means 
capitalization,  and  this  spells  out  power.  The  young 
men  and  young  women  with  hungry  minds,  not 
easily  satisfied,  who  persist  at  great  cost,  have  things 
ahead  of  them.  But  many  are  not  so  fortunate  as  to 
be  thus  endowed  with  the  hungry  mind  and  the  rest- 
less temperament.  Let  them  know  that  their  only 
hope  is  in  going  forward.  Let  them  recognize  that 
there  are  but  small  things  ahead  of  the  person  who  is 
willing  to  travel  only  the  short  road.  Let  them 
realize  that  whoever  fails  to  persist  falls  short  of  the 
outer  stimulations  and  the  appropriate  inner  develop- 
ment necessary  to  the  finest  type  of  efficient  character 
of  which  the  individual  is  capable. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
CHOICE  AND   CHARACTER 

The  relationship  existing  between  the  choices  of  an 
individual  and  his  character  is  a  very  close  one. 
The  significance  of  choice  cannot  be  overemphasized, 
for  at  every  turn  of  life  it  must  be  exercised.  One's 
advancement  is  thus  determined.  He  must  go  on  or 
stop,  and  this  involves  choice.  And  if  he  chooses  to 
go  forward  there  are  many  ways  open  to  him,  and  he 
must  choose  which  one  of  these  ways  he  will  pursue. 
So  that  from  earliest  childhood  to  the  end  of  life  there 
is  one  continual  procession  of  choices.  We  are  apt  to 
choose  what  we  desire,  and  when  there  is  a  conflict  of 
desires  we  are  apt  to  follow  the  stronger;  but  desire 
may  be  inherent,  and  it  may  just  as  easily  be  a  pull 
down  as  a  push  up.  It  is  just  as  apt  to  be  in  the 
direction  toward  death  as  toward  the  more  abundant 
life.  Every  one  has  realized  in  his  own  experience 
that  the  bare  native  desires  of  a  human  being  are 
not  always  final  criteria  of  the  direction  he  should 
take.  As  one  accumulates  experience  he  may  of 
course  desire  what  is  best  in  the  long  run  although 
not  most  gratifying  at  the  present,  but  this  of  course 
means  that  one  has  already  lived  and  that  he  has 
accumulated  experience.     It  demands  sufficient  past 

100 


CHOICE   AND   CHARACTER  101 

experience  to  serve  as  a  perspective,  to  give  him  in- 
sight into  the  long  run  ahead.  There  is  always 
found  here  a  conflict  between  the  strong  inclination 
to  gratify  the  present  desire  and  what  would  be  best 
in  the  long  run.  And  even  in  mature  life  the  desire 
for  present  gratification,  for  the  short  run,  sometimes 
prevails.  The  objective  stimuli  outweigh  the  sub- 
jective ideals  and  the  prospective  benefits  to  be 
derived  from  following  them;  so  that  all  along  the 
road  of  life  one  never  becomes  so  capitalized  and  so 
fully  the  master  of  himself  that  he  does  not  at  times 
feel  the  waging  of  the  conflict  in  making  his  choices. 
How  are  our  young  people  with  small  experience, 
with  practically  no  perspective,  to  be  helped  in  de- 
ciding for  the  good  in  the  long  run  against  the  desire 
for  present  gratification?  In  other  words,  how  may 
our  young  people  have  the  hope,  the  enthusiasm,  the 
prospect  of  the  young,  and  at  the  same  time  the 
judgment  and  the  wisdom  of  the  mature  in  making 
their  choices?  This  is  a  condition  greatly  to  be  de- 
sired and  never  to  be  realized.  I  hope  that  the  sug- 
gestions that  I  make  here  will  have  some  value  in 
helping  to  approximate  it. 

;First,  choice  is  largely  a  matter  of  naming  or 
classifying.  Our  young  people  can  be  taught  this  as 
a  fact,  as  they  are  taught  the  multiplication  table  as 
a  fact  or  the  verb  forms  of  their  mother  tongue 
as  a  fact.  They  can  if  need  be  commit  it  to  memory. 
By  copious  illustrations  this  can  be  made  very  clear  to 
the  mind  of  the  average  young  person.  Whether 
young  men  decide  upon  a  certain  course  of  action  or 


102  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE    TEACHER 

not  depends  very  largely  indeed  upon  their  classi- 
fication or  naming  of  the  thing  they  propose  to  do  or 
desist  from  doing.  On  the  Fourth  of  July  or  at 
Christmas  time  if  young  men  say,  "This  day  comes 
but  once  a  year;  we  should  appreciate  it  and  be 
good  fellows  together.  A  little  wine  must  be  taken 
for  the  stomach's  sake.  This  is  an  occasion  for  merri- 
ment and  not  for  long  faces.  Everything  is  made 
to  be  used;  it  is  too  bad  to  let  a  good  thing  that 
costs  so  much  go  to  waste,"  they  will  in  all  proba- 
bility, with  very  little  sense  of  wrong,  imbibe  freely. 
But  if,  on  the  other  hand,  they  name  it  differ- 
ently, if  they  make  a  different  classification;  if,  for 
example,  they  say,  "  This  may  result  in  drunkenness 
to-day,  in  a  bad  head  to-morrow,  in  misery  in  the 
home;  this  thing  may  set  up  tendencies  toward  an 
all-conquering  appetite  which  will  in  the  long  run  be 
ruinous;  this  act  classifies  us  with  all  those  who  im- 
bibe, with  those  who  are  to-day  in  the  jails  and  peni- 
tentiaries, in  the  gutters  and  in  the  madhouses,"  they 
will,  in  all  probability,  desist.  In  either  case  the 
bare  act  would  be  the  same,  but  classifying  it  as 
innocent  merriment  enables  them  to  go  in,  and  clas- 
sifying it  as  a  strong  pull  toward  ruin  they  stay 
out. 

The  same  thing  is  true  in  the  simple  virtue  of 
obedience  in  the  family  or  in  the  state.  If  one  classi- 
fies it  as  the  basis  for  institutional  harmony  and  in- 
stitutional efficiency,  he  will  gladly  obey  those  in 
authority  and  will  insist  upon  complete  obedience; 
but  if  he  classifies  it  as  an  imposition  by  those  in 


CHOICE   AND   CHAKACTER  103 

authority,  he  will  resent  it  and  will  be  disobedient  to 
the  point  of  disaster  to  his  own  life. 

Every  one  who  spends  six  days  a  week  in  the 
factory,  mill  or  shop  feels  the  physical  and  mental 
need  of  outdoor  recreation.  One  must  have  the 
sunshine,  the  fresh  air,  the  uplift  that  comes  from  a 
trip  into  the  country,  a  half  day  in  the  park  or 
a  cross-country  automobile  drive.  Of  course  these 
things  are  needful,  and  so  of  course  our  clean,  high- 
minded,  law-abiding  citizens  in  numbers  too  large  to 
be  told  are  spending  their  Sundays  in  this  way.  But 
if,  on  the  other  hand,  it  is  important  that  the  people 
from  time  to  time  should  be  still  before  God,  that 
they  should  commune  together  and  with  Him,  that  they 
should  meditate  upon  the  best,  that  Sunday  should 
be  a  holy  day  and  not  a  holiday;  if  it  is  more  im- 
portant to  observe  the  Sabbath  as  a  holy  day  than  it 
is  that  one's  business  should  prosper;  if  it  is  clearly 
seen  and  said  that  the  desecration  of  Sunday  is  a 
fatal  blow  to  the  foundations  of  our  civilized  life,  — 
then  the  parks  of  amusement  will  be  closed,  the 
white  cities  will  cease  their  operations,  and  Sunday 
will  cease  to  be  a  day  of  whoop  and  hurrah  and 
general  fussiness,  and  will  become  a  day  of  quiet 
meditation  and  holy  devotion  to  higher  things.  The 
path  into  which  one's  feet  turn  on  Sunday  morning 
is  determined  almost  entirely  by  the  classification  of 
the  opportunity  which  the  day  affords. 

The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  use  of  profanity. 
Men  often  say  that  they  must  do  the  subject  justice 
and  that  a  good  ''cussing  out"  is  the  only  thing  that 


104  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

can  be  done.  They  forget  that  profanity  is  the  means 
that  small  minds  employ  to  express  themselves 
emphatically.  The  other  men  simply  classify  pro- 
fanity in  another  category. 

I  heard  a  man  in  a  high  official  position  say  that 
women  have  no  smuggling  conscience.  He  was  pro- 
voked to  this  statement  by  the  fact  that  women  of 
high  social  standing  and  intelligence  and  positions  of 
honor  in  the  church  had  smuggled  large  quantities  of 
goods  through  the  customhouse,  and  by  the  merest 
accident  had  been  caught.  Now  these  women  would 
not  have  been  guilty  of  the  offense  of  stealing  from  the 
government  or  from  an  individual,  of  taking  things 
outright;  they  made  this  serious  mistake  through 
failure  to  classify  the  act  as  one  of  theft. 

The  country  boy  does  not  hesitate  a  moment  to 
play  a  joke  on  his  neighbor  by  taking  a  watermelon 
from  his  field,  but  he  could  not  be  hired  to  steal  a 
watermelon  from  his  neighbor.  It  is  the  same  act 
in  either  case.  Call  it  a  joke  and  he  goes  in;  call  it 
theft  and  he  stays  out.  Now,  as  was  stated  in  a 
former  paragraph,  we  can  help  our  young  people  by 
teaching  them  outright  the  best  names  to  apply  to 
certain  conduct,  and  when  they  have  definite  styles 
of  conduct  labeled  correctly  their  behavior  will  like- 
wise be  correct. 

In  the  second  place,  we  can  teach  our  young  people 
outright,  as  we  do  the  multiplication  table  or  the 
verb  forms,  that  choice  is  largely  a  matter  of  atten- 
tion; that  as  a  man  thinketh  in  his  heart,  that  is, 
as  he  attends  with  his  life,  as  he  focuses  himself  upon 


CHOICE   AND   CHARACTER  105 

a  thing,  so  is  he.  So  that  if  the  objects  of  attention 
now  present  to  the  individual  are  not  conducive  to 
what  he  knows  to  be  right  choices,  he  can  flee  them  as 
he  would  a  pestilence  and  bring  himself  into  a  human 
and  institutional  environment  which  will  offer  him 
objects  of  attention  conducive  to  this  right  choosing. 
If  the  eye  offend  thee,  pluck  it  out.  This  may  be 
done  by  plucking  out  the  thing  that  appeals  to  the 
individual  through  the  eye,  and  this  is  most  readily 
done  by  plucking  oneself  away  from  the  presence  of 
such  an  object.  And  if  the  hand  offend  thee,  cut  it 
ofif.  This  may  best  be  done  by  cutting  off  the  thing 
that  the  hand  grasps,  by  cutting  oneself  off  from 
the  presence  of  the  thing  which  is  an  offense  through 
the  hand.  We  can  teach  young  people  that  thinking 
and  doing  are  one  and  the  same  thing,  merely  obverse 
sides  one  of  the  other;  that  as  one  attends,  his  choice 
is  determined,  and  that  the  only  way  of  choosing 
the  best  is  to  go  away  from  the  objects  that  lure  us 
downward. 

Now  there  are  certain  large  and  comprehensive 
choices  which  determine  the  multitude  of  smaller 
choices  and  which  are  fraught  with  the  greatest  re- 
sponsibility. The  choice  of  one's  occupation,  for 
example,  will  determine  to  a  large  degree  the  character 
of  all  the  later  choices  which  follow  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  the  occupation.  The  choice  of  one's  lifemate 
will  affect  the  character  practically  of  all  the  choices 
that  are  made  in  after  life.  The  choice  of  one's 
occupation  involves  no  smaller  question  than  this,  the 
thing  that  one  decides  to  spend  his  life  with;  and  the 


106  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

choice  of  one's  mate  determines  no  smaller  question 
than  this,  the  person  with  whom  one  decides  to  spend 
his  life.  These  are  the  largest  choices  of  life,  and  in 
the  making  of  them  our  young  people  should  be  helped, 
not  driven,  to  classify  materials  of  choice  on  the 
highest,  sanest  and  truest  basis.  What  is  a  man's 
life  work  to  be?  Give  it  the  right  name,  classify  it 
correctly  and  attend  to  right  things  in  determining  it, 
and  the  choice  will  be  well  made.  Who  is  a  man's 
mate  to  be?  Define  it  right  and  attend  to  the  right 
character  in  making  the  choice  and  the  choice  will  be 
well  made.  There  is  nothing  so  important  to  the 
human  life,  humanly  speaking,  as  these  comparatively 
early  and  exceedingly  large  choices,  and  yet  many 
young  people  make  them  more  hurriedly,  more 
thoughtlessly,  with  less  judgment  and  less  counsel, 
than  they  would  exercise  in  the  smallest  business  trans- 
action. They  take  the  remainder  of  life  to  repent. 
The  road  through  life  that  one  travels  determines 
his  environment,  his  stimuli,  and  to  a  large  extent 
his  objective  opportunities;  and  these  determine  in  a 
very  large  measure  his  life  reactions  and  his  conduct. 
There  is  therefore  nothing  of  greater  importance 
than  the  large  choices  of  life,  and  we  certainly  have 
here  the  crux  of  human  responsibility. 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  SCHOOL  AND   CHARACTER 

We  have  seen  in  previous  chapters  the  part  the 
school  has  in  determining  the  ideals  of  the  children. 
In  this  chapter  I  wish  to  emphasize  the  value  of  the 
school  as  an  institution  in  which  the  method  of 
realizing  these  ideals  can  be  taught.  Chapter  XIV 
insists  upon  application  or  work  as  the  only  sure  and 
legitimate  method.  To  realize  on  himself  and  his 
ideals  the  individual  must  choose  his  work  and  then 
apply  himself  to  it. 

What  is  the  opportunity  offered  by  the  school  for 
developing  in  the  child  the  power  and  habit  of  wise 
choice  and  effective  application?  I  wish  to  make  it 
plain  that  the  opportunities  here  are  as  numerous  as 
the  steps  taken  from  the  moment  the  child  enters  the 
school  until  the  hour  he  graduates  from  it.  It  is  a 
program  of  choice  and  application  from  beginning  to 
finish.  The  course  that  the  child  takes  in  the  mastery 
of  every  assignment  is  to  be  chosen  by  him.  There 
is  the  opportunity  for  exercise  of  judgment  at  every 
step.  Take,  for  example,  his  work  in  arithmetic. 
Any  problem  that  has  in  it  a  half  dozen  steps  requires 
the  exercise  of  judgment  and  choice  a  half  dozen 
times;   and  any  problem  that  requires  a  hundred 

107 


108  FUNDAMENTAL   FACTS   FOR   THE   TEACHER 

steps  in  its  solution  requires  likewise  the  exercise  of 
judgment  and  choice  a  hundred  times.  I  know  of  no 
field  in  the  so-called  affairs  of  later  life  which  de- 
mands that  right  choice  be  made  in  order  that  right 
results  may  be  obtained  to  a  higher  degree  than  does 
the  work  in  arithmetic,  and  the  mathematics  that 
follow  it  in  the  higher  grades.  The  same  demand 
for  conscientious  exercise  of  judgment  and  choice  is 
found  in  the  chemical  laboratory.  The  questions  are 
always  arising,  —  what  things  shall  be  used,  how 
much,  in  what  proportions,  in  what  way,  how  long, 
when  is  the  experiment  concluded  and  what,  after 
all,  are  the  legitimate  deductions  that  can  be  made 
from  it?  Choice  is  no  less  demanded  in  all  the  other 
subjects  of  study  than  in  these  two  which  I  have 
used  merely  by  way  of  example;  biology,  physics, 
algebra,  geometry,  grammar  offer  the  same  chance. 

Whether  the  management  of  athletics  has  always 
been  wise  or  not  is  not  here  the  question.  Sometimes 
it  has  been  wise,  sometimes  it  has  been  unwise.  But 
athletics  has  rendered  great  service  to  the  school  and 
to  the  world.  Football,  for  example,  has  demon- 
strated to  the  satisfaction  of  every  one  sufficiently 
wide  awake  to  get  the  lesson,  that  a  man  simply 
cannot  do  his  best  unless  he  is  at  his  best.  This 
principle  is  demonstrated  objectively  and  in  a  com- 
paratively coarse  way  on  the  gridiron,  but  it  applies 
just  as  truly  to  the  work  of  the  teacher  at  his  desk  or 
to  the  preacher  in  the  pulpit  as  it  does  to  the  athlete. 
If  the  athlete  is  not  tingUng  with  vitality,  if  he  is  not 
at  his  best,  he  cannot  play  the  game.     If  the  minister 


THE   SCHOOL   AND   CHARACTER  109 

or  the  teacher  is  at  less  than  his  best  then  he  cannot 
get  the  finest  results. 

Now  athletics  offers  a  fine  field  for  quick  judgment 
and  right  choice.  The  shortstop  has  no  time  after 
receiving  the  ball  to  consult  with  the  captain  as  to 
what  he  shall  do  with  it.  Quicker  almost  than 
thought,  if  men  are  on  second  and  third  bases  a  good 
shortstop  will  do  the  appropriate  thing,  which  might 
have  been  the  most  inappropriate  thing  if  men  were 
not  on  second  and  third.  In  all  the  hours  of  practice 
and  play,  quick  action,  accurate  action  and  correct 
action  are  demanded.  The  same  thing  is  true  of 
the  quarter  back  in  the  game  of  football.  He  must 
detect  at  a  glance  the  weak  place  in  the  opposing 
team;  he  must  detect  at  a  glance  which  of  his  own 
men  are  at  their  best,  and  which  are  undertoned;  he 
must  be  quick  to  accept  every  slip  on  the  part  of 
the  opposition.  The  judgments  and  the  choices  of 
the  quarter  back  in  the  game  of  football  are  almost 
as  important  as  the  training  of  the  team  in  the  days 
that  precede  the  game. 

So  that  the  school  in  its  work  and  in  its  play  offers 
continued  and  varied  opportunities  for  the  develop- 
ment of  the  power  and  the  habit  of  wise  choice.  It 
offers  no  less  opportunity  for  the  development  in  the 
child  of  the  power  and  habit  of  persistent,  consistent, 
effective  application.  After  all,  the  great  word  in 
pedagogy,  as  in  life,  is  getting  it  done,  human  adjust- 
ment, accomphshing  the  task,  and  thereby  accom- 
plishing the  much  larger  and  more  important  work  of 
one's  own  Ufe.     Neither  the  shop,  the  factory  nor  the 


110  FUNDAMENTAL   PACTS   FOR  THE   TEACHER 

office  in  after  life  will  offer  such  systematic  and  varied 
opportunities  for  the  development  of  this  power  of 
appUcation  as  does  the  school.  No  man  at  his  desk 
or  in  the  factory  is  obliged  to  apply  himself  more 
faithfully,  intensely  and  consecutively  to  the  task  in 
hand  than  is  the  student  who  is  plowing  his  way 
through  the  subject  of  quadratics.  And  probably  a 
single  misstep  in  the  work  at  the  desk  or  in  the  factory 
would  not  result  so  disastrously  to  the  end  desired 
as  would  a  single  misstep  in  the  solution  of  a  problem 
in  quadratics.  The  same  thing  is  true  of  the  mastery 
of  an  assignment  in  Virgil,  in  biology,  in  history. 
Mastery  in  all  these  lines  demands  consecutive,  uni- 
form, intelligent  application,  just  such  application  as 
the  world  will  demand  in  later  life,  just  such  appUca- 
tion as  the  world  to-day  is  demanding  and  which  it 
is  not  always  securing. 

Manual  training,  which  has  gone  forward  so  rapidly 
in  our  schools  within  the  last  ten  years,  offers  a  fine 
chance  here.  Not  only  the  industrial  world  but  the 
professional  world  in  the  next  decade  will  have  more 
willing  and  worthy  workers  in  it  as  a  result  of  the 
power  and  habit  of  effective  application  that  our 
young  men  by  the  thousands  are  gaining  in  the 
manual-training  schools.  The  school  offers  as  does 
no  other  institution,  during  the  plastic  years,  —  which 
because  they  are  plastic  are  therefore  the  hopeful 
years,  —  the  opportunity  for  imbedding  into  the  char- 
acters of  the  young  the  habits  of  exactness  and  appli- 
cation which  will  be  valuable  assets  throughout  hfe. 

The  great  chance  of  the  school  and  therefore  the 


THE   SCHOOL  AND   CHARACTER  111 

great  function  of  the  school  is  a  threefold  one.  First, 
from  the  beginning  to  the  finish,  it  offers  a  vast 
variety  of  organized  stimulations  to  the  child  which 
are  calculated  to  bring  into  activity  all  of  his  tend- 
encies upward  and  to  allow  to  remain  inactive  the 
tendencies  downward.  The  inevitable  result  of  this 
is  that  the  tendencies  downward  will  become  arrested 
in  their  development  and  that  they  will  be  elimi- 
nated through  disuse,  and  that  the  tendencies  up- 
ward, through  these  long  and  systematic  stimulations, 
will  be  developed  until  they  reach  the  place  of  mastery 
in  one's  life.  In  the  second  place,  the  school  offers 
the  child  a  long  list  and  a  vast  variety  of  oppor- 
tunities for  choice.  No  school  can  fail  entirely  in 
these  opportunities;  and,  other  things  being  equal,  the 
school  which  meets  this  demand  most  fully  is  the 
best  school.  In  the  third  place,  the  school  should 
give  the  child  a  long  list  of  varied  chances  to  apply 
himself  in  getting  results  and  in  overcoming.  This  is 
the  only  method  that  will  result  in  that  degree  of  effi- 
ciency which  every  department  of  life  needs  so  much. 
The  school,  then,  is  not  so  much  an  institution  for  the 
imparting  of  facts  as  it  is  an  institution  for  the  build- 
ing of  character  through  its  own  stimulations,  and 
through  the  choices  and  appUcations  of  the  students. 


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